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Heart Problems and World Issues. 



HEART PROBLEMS 
and WORLD ISSUES 



A Study of the Book of 
Revelation. 

by 

JAMES ALLEN GEISSINGER, 

Pastor University Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Los Angeles, California. 



THE ABINGDON PRESS 
$itm gorft Cincinnati 




Copyrighted, 1914, 
By James Allen Geissinger 



408 211914 

©CI.A379210 



BY WAY OF PREFACE. 

It will be apparent at once to the 
reader that the present volume does not 
make claim to a place among the com- 
mentaries on the Book of Revelation. It 
is rather a popular interpretation of the 
Book with the purpose of setting forth 
its deeper spiritual import. 

More than ten years ago the author 
began a serious study of the Book, seek- 
ing to make use of the best available 
helps and always to keep an open mind. 
He can now recall but two prepossessions 
concerning the Book. On the one hand 
was the opinion that the Book must be 
5 



By Way of Preface. 

beyond deciphering in any way at all 
satisfying, and that possibly because the 
key had been lost. Else why such 
diversity of opinion concerning the Book 
not only among scholars, but among lay- 
men. On the other hand was the feeling 
that, since the Book had been placed 
at the close of the sacred canon, it must 
have been considered by the Church as 
the Climax of The Writings. Hence it 
would not only throw light upon what 
had preceded, but also upon "things to 
come." 

What was his surprise to find the 
Book a delight to the eyes and pleasant 
to the taste! Its glorious pictures he 
holds among his most precious mental 
possessions. Its appeal has not lost its 
6 



By Way of Preface. 

power with the years. He has kept to 
the study of it not professionally, but be- 
cause of the fascination it has had for 
him and for the spiritual value he has 
found in it. At the same time his study 
of the Book has been systematic and 
prayerful, for he has realized that this is 
not only an exceedingly interesting human 
document, but that here, as certainly as 
anywhere, the voice of the Divine Wis- 
dom, of the Divine Grace, of the Divine 
Love, speaks to the human heart upon 
the deep problems and the great issues. 

The several studies making up this 
volume and constituting one study of 
the Book were given individually and at 
varying intervals of time to widely sepa- 
rated audiences until recently, when they 
7 



By Way of Preface. 

were gathered together and given as a 
series before the Maclay School of The- 
ology of the University of Southern 
California. They are now given to the 
larger public of readers with but one 
desire, that they may possibly induce 
some one to read the Book, or possibly 
help some one who is reading the Book 
to a better understanding of the same. 

JAMES ALLEN GEISSINGER. 
Los Angeles, California, 
November, 1913. 



8 



CONTENTS. 

I. The Book, - . - 13 
II. The Book and Christ, - 39 

III. The Book and the 

Church,- - 71 

IV. The Book and the God of 

Holy Love, - 99 

V. The Book and The Beast, 129 

VI. The Book and the Re- 
turning Christ, - 163 

VII. The Book and the Better 

Country, - - 195 

VIII. The Seer, - - - 219 



THE BOOK. 



JN estimating the Apocalypse the thought lies near at hand 
that its value is not to be measured by the extent of its 
dogmatic content. There is a healthful tonic in its religious 
intensity. It supplies a great store of riches to the religious 
imagination. It dignifies the Christian warfare as part of a 
great drama that is being led on to a transcendently glorious 
issue. Well has it been called the epic of Christian hope. 
Many of its outlooks have perennial charm, and many of its 
words descend generation after generation like strains of 
celestial music upon the troubled hearts of men. — Henry C. 
Sheldon in "New Testament Theology" p. 170. 



THE BOOK. 



The Book of Revelation can not be 
measured by any rule of thumb. Men 
have tried that. They have made mathe- 
matical calculations as to its symbols and 
wise guesses at its puzzles. But it is not 
a book of rebuses and cryptograms. If 
we were to strike out all it has to say 
about mystic numbers and seals and 
vials and trumpets, there would still be 
left an amazing residuum of spiritual 
meaning. For, primarily, the Book is a 
book of the heart, for the heart. 1 It is 
a book that deals with heart problems 
and world issues. 2 In it a great faith 
speaks. A faith that is assured not 

1 2: 2, 2: 13, 5: 4-5, 7: 14-17, etc. 2 Chapters 2, 3, 17, 
and 18. 

13 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

simply that Righteousness shall triumph, 
but that Righteousness does triumph. 3 
The very first vision of the Book shows 
us God as a Divine Presence in His world, 
for the Throne in heaven does not come 
first. 4 First comes the Risen and Glori- 
fied Christ, keeping watch above His 
own, He, who carries the chain of stars 
in His hand. 5 

We listen as we read the Book, and 
we hear the booming of the sea — the sea 
that stood to the Seer as a symbol of all 
the forces thundering against the King- 
dom, the varied spiritual antagonisms — 
the sea that beat and pounded on Patmos 
with deafening tumult, and was soon to 
be no more; 6 yet above the noise of the 
sea we hear the trumpets of the Lord 7 
as with His Church He rides forth con- 

3 19: 6. 4 1:10-20. 5 1: 20. 6 21:1; also 20: 13, 
18:17, 13:1, 10:2. 7 8: 6, 7, 8, 10, 12; 9:1, 13, 15. 

14 



The Book. 



quering and to conquer; 8 and above the 
trumpets 9 we hear the heavenly voices 
shouting, "Hallelujah, the Lord God Om- 
nipotent reigneth;" 10 until at last, above 
all the jangling sounds of earth, we hear 
the mighty hallelujah chorus. The Book 
is full of music. That is not a bit of 
fancy which traces the ascent of the 
Book from solo, through quartets, angel 
choruses, and martyr choruses, to the 
grand Hallelujah Chorus, in which all the 
redeemed with all the heavenly hosts 
and all the harps and viols and trumpets 
and cymbals are heard. For the Book 
speaks to us of the time when strifes and 
wars and discords shall be no more. 

8 19: 11-16. 9 11: 15-19. 10 19: 1-8. 

Mr. S. D. Gordon, in his "Quiet Talks with World 
Winners," p. 148, notes the musical effects in the Book: 
Solo, 1:5, 6; Quartet, 4:8; Sextuple Quartet, 4:9-11, 
5:8-10; Angel Chorus, 5:11-12; Creation Chorus, 5:13; 
Martyr Chorus, 7:9-12; Chorus of Pure Ones, 14:1-5; 
Victors' Chorus, 15:2-4; Hallelujah Chorus, 19:1-18. 

15 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

. . . The background of the Book is 
the stone quarries of Patmos, 11 where 
John labored through the day that he 
might write through the night to the 
Church. But in the foreground rise the 
shining walls of the City with its open- 
gates, each one a pearl! 12 The Book is 
full of magnificent pictures, of sublime 
outlooks. No other book equals it in 
the splendor and gorgeousness and spir- 
itual meaning of its pictures. The Seer 
not only speaks of but makes you see 
the Dragon 13 and the Beast 14 and the 
Harlot 15 and also the Lord of Glory 16 
and the White Throne 17 and the Heavenly 
Hosts 18 and the Bride! 19 How much we 
of this day need the point of view of the 
Exile! How much heartier our faith 
would be if we could at least now and 

11 See chapter on "Seer." 12 21: 10-27; 21:21. 13 12: 
1-9. 14 13: 1-10. 16 17: 3-6. "Chapters 4 and 5. 
"20:11-15. 18 19: 11-16. 19 21: 9. 

16 



The Book. 



then see life and things under the aspect 
of eternity! The Book has over it the 
shadow of the Roman Empire — even the 
shadow of the Beast, of the Dragon, of 
sin. But, more, it has upon it the Glory 
of God! It is a book of unveiling; and 
sin is unveiled in it and is disclosed in all 
of its hideousness, as it is in Dante. 
Yet the Book speaks not of sin, of the 
futility of sin, but rather it reveals the 
whole world as lying in the Glory of God, 
Redeeming Grace! for the central figure 
of the Book is the Slain Lamb en- 
throned, 20 which is the Seer's way of un- 
veiling the Holy Love back of all things, 
over all things. . . . The perspective 
of the Book is infinite. As we look 
back we see a Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world; 21 and then we 
walk with the Seer and his angelic guides 



20 5: 6. 21 13: 8. 

2 17 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

down long vistas, through which flashes 
the Glory of God, across centuries of 
civilization, groaning and struggling and 
toiling towards the light, until we see at 
the last the land afar off where men and 
women are whose robes have been washed 
in the Blood of the Lamb, 22 on whose 
bosoms, in whose hearts, is the Cross. 

I trust we shall get the Exile's per- 
spective as we go forward in our reading; 
that we shall hear not simply the under- 
tone, but the mighty overtone of tri- 
umph and hope that sounds throughout 
the Book; that we shall rise to some- 
thing of the greatness and the serenity 
of the Seer's faith in the presence of a 
Holy Love in the World. 

The Book has often been unfortunate 
in its friends, for, instead of being set 



22 21: 24-27. 



18 



The Book. 



forth as a great drama, a great poem, a 
sublime apocalypse, it has been made to 
be a chart of dispensations, if not a 
menagerie of monstrosities, until some 
wit has said if the Book does not find its 
reader crack-brained it leaves him so. 

It is not strange that the Book has 
attracted minds of an eccentric type or 
that it has lent itself readily to the chart- 
makers and the mechanics of the King- 
dom. The Book is realistic; and all 
realistic literature, Dante, Browning, or 
whoever the author, is difficult reading. 
It calls for patience and for the imagina- 
tion at its best. Some books must be 
read with the logical faculty in the as- 
cendant, some with the imagination in 
the ascendant. "Revelation" belongs to 
the latter class. When spiritual truth is 
set forth under a symbol, it is so easy for 
the reader to take the symbol literally. 
19 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



Sometimes he masters the temptation 
and gets the meaning. For instance, few- 
readers will have difficulty in seeing that 
when the Seer pictures Christ as having a 
sword come out of His mouth he is say- 
ing pictorially that by the Word, the 
Gospel, the foolishness of preaching, 
Christ is to conquer, the Kingdom is to 
come. But, as we shall see, it is ap- 
parently impossible for some interpreters 
to read the Book through and con- 
sistently escape the snare of literalism. 
For example, again, it is only a bald 
literalism that is confronted with the 
disturbing query, Why did God let the 
Devil out after he once had him jailed? 23 
This difficulty of literalism, or rather the 
formal characteristic of the Book, its 
symbolism, will come to fuller treatment 
as we go forward in our reading. Enough 



20: 1-3 and 20: 7. 



20 



The Book. 



to say here thai many important passages 
of the Book will not admit of a literal 
reading. But if that is so, then it ought 
to be clear that the literalist has no key 
for us, for we must interpret consistently. 
It is unreasonable to read the first 
chapter symbolically and the twentieth 
chapter literally and still expect to secure 
a sane and rational view of the Kingdom 
and its consummation. The Book is a 
great picture book 24 from which, if we 
look steadfastly, we shall see the Glory 
of God break upon us. 

Here it may be well to remark that 
the Book has its deeper affinities with, say 
the Fourth Gospel, 25 rather than with 

24 The Book may well be studied in its scenic effects. 
Note its chief visions: The Golden Candlesticks, the Throne, 
the Multitude on the Sea of Glass, the Angels with the Bowls, 
Babylon, the New Jerusalem, etc. 

25 Anderson Scott, "Revelation," p. 45, says the opinion 
of the Early Church was that whoever wrote the Fourth 
Gospel wrote the Apocalypse, and adds that this opinion is 
once more in the ascendant. 

21 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Jewish apocalypse. It is true that in its 
form the Book belongs to the apocalyptic 
literature, and the Seer apparently made 
use of Jewish apocalypses. I do not be- 
lieve that it is possible to understand the 
Book in its time, setting, and form, to 
fully appreciate its atmosphere and em- 
phasis, without the help gained from a 
study of the apocalyptic literature. Hence 
we do well to be grateful to those schol- 
ars who have labored in that field and to 
make use of their work. 

Yet this lead will not take us far. The 
Seer was more than an apocalyptist. He 
makes that clear by his handling of his 
material. And it is foolish for the reader 
to try to crowd his meaning back to the 
conventional level. As foolish as to try 
to reduce the Master's meaning to that 
of His contemporaries. Poets and proph- 
ets use forms, words, symbols after the 
22 



The Book. 



manner of their own genius, and the 
interpreter must seek to follow that 
genius. 

Now, there can be no question but 
that in the Book of Revelation we find 
the same type of mind that energized in 
the Fourth Gospel; the same breadth of 
view, the same easy grasp of both great 
and subtle spiritual truths, the same 
gift of insight, the same moral poignancy, 
the same self-suppression, the same spirit 
of awe combined with spiritual audacity. 
This impression is deepened with con- 
tinued, open-minded study. It is not 
merely a personal impression. All stu- 
dents are agreed upon the fact, though 
its full significance does not seem to be 
generally felt; for all scholars say either 
that the same writer has given us both 
books or else that both books have come 
from two writers of the same school of 
23 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

thought. Both the Book of Revelation 
and the Fourth Gospel belong to the 
same school of thought. The real sig- 
nificance of this fact is for the interpreta- 
tion of the Book of Revelation. It ought 
to be a perpetual protest against any 
form of literalism and also against any 
merely apocalyptic conception of the 
Book. 

It is also well to note that the Seer 
pays little, if any, heed to time se- 
quences. He is, however, acutely sensi- 
tive to moral sequences. It is difficult 
ever to say that this section of the Book 
belongs after that, and still more difficult 
to say at what time after. We must be 
careful, then, about our chronology in 
reading the Book of Revelation. Never- 
theless the Book deals with a specific 
historical situation. Swete rightly says 
that in form the Book is an Epistle (not 
24 



The Book. 



a letter) 26 containing an apocalyptic 
prophecy, but that in spirit and inner 
purpose it is a pastoral, that is, it sprung 
out of an actual condition and need. 
This must be grasped fully by the reader. 
But the Book deals with eternal problems 
and values, and is for all time. It can 
not be understood apart from its time, 
but its message was not exhausted by 
its time. Indeed, it is doubtful if any 
other book in the Canon speaks more 
directly to our present generation than 
does this Book. 

It will help us to an understanding 
of the Book and also reveal at once the 
main emphasis in the present interpreta- 
tion of the Book if we examine even 

26 Deissmann, "Light from the Ancient East," p. 220, says: 
"An epistle is an artistic literary form, . . . like the 
dialogue, the oration, or the drama." Unlike the letter, it is 
intended for publicity. It differs from the letter as the dia- 
logue from conversation. 

25 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

hastily its carefully wrought-out struc- 
ture, for no other book in the Bible 
shows more artistic feeling or displays a 
better sense of proportion or a finer gift 
for massing material than this book. 
There is nowhere confusion, but part fits 
in with part, and the whole is a beauti- 
ful mosaic or, perhaps more accurately, a 
series of naming canvases. 

We read, 1:1-8, that the Book is a 
revelation of Jesus Christ to His Church 
given by His angel, and shows "things 
which must shortly come to pass." 
"Blessed is he that readeth and they 
that hear the words of this prophecy, 
and keep those things which are written 
therein: for the time is at hand." As 
the Book seeks to give such a revelation 
of Christ as will hearten the Church and 
send it forward on its great mission, we 
have set before us at once in verses 4-6 
26 



The Book. 



the glorified Christ. The Prelude comes 
to a climax in verses 7 and 8, which con- 
tain the Divine Asseveration. It is true 
that the time sequences are subordinate 
in the Book to the moral sequences, but 
one of the fundamental messages of the 
Book is given here in the affirmation that 
shortly a glorious manifestation is to be 
made. Only let the reader keep in mind 
the peril of literalism in his attempt to 
grasp the word "shortly." Thus ends 
the First Main Division of the Book, the 
Prelude. (1:1-8.) 

The Second Main Division (1:9- 
3 : 22) gives a Revelation of Christ's 
Glory to the Church, and includes the 
Lord's Day Vision and the Messages to 
the Churches. I think it best to take the 
Vision with the Messages, for its mean- 
ing is not made clear until the last word 
of the last letter has been read. An 
27 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

understanding of this section is of the 
utmost importance to an understanding 
of the Book, for in it we see the actual 
situation the Seer was seeking to meet; 
and it is only as we grasp the historical 
setting of the Book that we can hope to 
get its spiritual import. I do not find 
myself at all able to agree with Ramsay 
that the "Apocalypse would be quite 
complete without the Seven Letters." 
(Page 37.) On the contrary, without the 
material of this section a great part of 
what follows is left without foundation, 
like a house in midair, for, as Swete says, 
(CCXVII), "The Apocalypse is cast in 
the form of a letter" (rather, an epistle) 
"to certain Christian societies, and it 
opens with a detailed account of their 
conditions and circumstances." This 
fact, which adds immensely to the per- 
manent value of the Book, simply must 
28 



The Book. 



be kept in mind constantly if the Book 
is to be understood at all. 

The Third Main Division of the 
Book ends with chapter eleven. Swete 
(XXXIX) notes this cleavage and re- 
marks, "Had all our MSS. broken off at 
11: 19, and no vestige of the last eleven 
chapters survived, it is conceivable that 
the loss might never have been suspected." 

Let us look at this section for a 
moment. In 4:1 we have a transition 
clearly marked: "After this I looked, 
and behold, a door was opened in heaven: 
and the first voice which I heard was as 
it were of a trumpet talking with me: 
which said, Come up hither, and I will 
show thee things which must be here- 
after." 

Chapters four and five give the set- 
ting, and are manifestly introductory to 
what follows. At the same time these 
&9 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

chapters serve to give the Church mili- 
tant, hard-pressed and disheartened, a 
vision of eternity. 

The message which follows is given 
in the form of seals which are opened — 
six of them in chapter six. If we read 
on we find that the seventh seal is opened 
at 8:1, "And when he had opened the 
seventh seal there was silence in heaven." 
Chapter seven is a parenthesis with a 
double purpose: First, it is a word of 
comfort to the afflicted Christians; sec- 
ondly, it prepares the way for the open- 
ing of the seventh seal and serves to 
heighten the effect of what follows. 

The seventh seal consists of seven 
trumpets, which are sounded in close 
sequence, as we are told in chapters eight 
and nine. 

The seventh trumpet is not sounded 
until we come to 11 : 15. And here, again, 
30 



The Book. 



the interlude 10:1-11:14 serves the 
author well, helping him to make his 
transition and adding to the effect. 
Notice — The former interruption or epi- 
sode helps to emphasize the climactic 
effect desired in the opening of the seventh 
seal. The present interruption serves to 
set the sounding of the last trumpet in 
most sublime climax. 

This tenth chapter is exceedingly im- 
portant. For instance, verse 11 indi- 
cates that the Seer has yet other revela- 
tions to receive. It looks forward. For 
this reason, while Professor Swete is cer- 
tainly right in emphasizing the marked 
cleavage in the Book at the end of the 
eleventh chapter, he is scarcely justified 
in adding that we would never have 
missed the remaining chapters had they 
been lost. 

In 11:8, which reads, "And their 
31 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



dead bodies shall lie in the street of the 
great city, which spiritually is called 
Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord 
was crucified," we seem to have a time 
clue to the effect that the visions given 
in the seven seals reveal the judgments 
of God, culminating in the fall of Jerusa- 
lem. It is possible that this portion of 
the Book was written at a date some- 
what earlier than the other portions. 

The Fourth Main Division of the 
Book begins with chapter twelve and 
ends at the twenty-first verse of the 
nineteenth chapter (12:1-19:21). Here 
we are given a new outlook on God's 
judgments. We no longer see the Seven 
Churches with their particular problems, 
but the Church at large in the struggle 
with the World-Empire. The main char- 
acters are the Woman and the Dragon, 
with his minions, the Beast and the False 
32 



The Book. 



Prophet; or, as it is often put, Christ and 
Anti-Christ. We no longer have our 
attention fastened upon Sodom where 
"our Lord was crucified," but upon 
Babylon — "drunken with the blood of the 
saints, and with the blood of the martyrs 
of Jesus" (17:6). This division of the 
Book gives us God's judgment of con- 
demnation upon the Dominion of the 
Dragon as embodied in the Roman Em- 
pire. 

Chapters twelve, thirteen, and four- 
teen are introductory, giving us the vision 
of the Woman and the Dragon (12: 1-18), 
the Beast from the Sea (13:1-10), and 
the Vision of the 144,000 (14:1-20). 

Chapters fifteen and sixteen give us 
the vision of the Vials of Wrath. From 
17-19: 10 we have a more detailed ac- 
count of the doom of the mystic Baby- 
lon. 

3 33 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



The Fifth Main Division (20:1-15) 
gives us the story of the completion of 
the conquest of Christ in the destruction 
of the Dragon, while above the field of 
time rises the Great White Throne — 
showing that the Lord God Omnipotent 
still reigneth. This chapter might be 
included under division four but that the 
Seer does not think of the struggle as 
ending with the fall of the Beast. It is 
difficult to say how long a time view 27 he 
had, but the text indicates a period of 
time of indefinite length between the 
destruction of the Beast and the Dragon, 
while 19: 11-21 seems to be used to make 
clear the victory of Christ over the 
Beast. 

27 "Even the Apocalypse, which is commonly supposed to 
portray sudden and dynamic changes, when studied closely, 
reveals a vast scheme of human history, requiring immense 
stretches of time for its fulfillment." — Thomas, " The Coming 
Presence," p. 13. 

34 



The Book. 



The Sixth Main Division (21: 1-22: 5) 
contains the vision of the New Jerusa- 
lem. 

The Epilogue constitutes the Seventh 
Main Division (22: 6-21). 



35 



THE BOOK AND CHRIST. 



fjpHE best commentary on the claim that He had come to 
fulfill the law and the prophets is Hebrews; the most 
impressive representations of His functions as Redeemer and 
Judge are to be found in the Apocalypse. — Fairbairn, "Phi- 
losophy of the Christian Religion," p. £75. 



THE BOOK AND CHRIST. 

The Book is "the Revelation of Jesus 
Christ." However we may construe the 
grammar of the opening sentence, the 
purport of the Book is unmistakable. 
The Book is not a book of "last things," 
but a book in which the Spirit takes the 
things of Christ — His person, His work, 
His grace, His power, His glory — and 
makes them manifest to us. The Book 
throws light on many problems of the 
heart, on great world issues, on many of 
the movements of the Spirit. It says 
great things about the Church, about 
the Kingdom, about righteousness, about 
Calvary, about the Great White Throne. 
But it is primarily a revelation of Jesus 
Christ and the glorious life of light, 
39 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

peace, liberty, and joy He hath secured 
for His own by His sacrifice. 

Some one 1 has spoken of the Book 
as giving us a revelation of the glory of 
the Person the Lord, of the toiling and 
witnessing of the People of the Lord, and, 
finally, of the Purpose of the Lord in 
His People. This is not an exaggeration 
of the sweep of the Book's thought and 
disclosure, yet every figure, every vision, 
every revelation in the Book seems to 
focus on Christ and to take its meaning 
from Him. He is the center of the can- 
vas. He is the theme of the oratorio. 
He is the hero of the drama. The Book 
is all these. All eyes look on Him whom 
they have pierced 2 as He is unveiled as 
the Faithful Witness, 3 the Giver of Life, 
the Ruler of Kings, the Savior of Men, 
the Judge of the World. 

1 Campbell Morgan, I believe. 2 1 : 7. 3 1 : 5. 

40 



The Book and Christ. 



II. 

The Seer's thought moves around two 
poles: First, Christ is present in the 
world as the sufficient grace; secondly, 
Christ, present in the world as the suf- 
ficient grace, shall yet prevail completely. 
Read the Book as we will, and we must 
be conscious of its twofold message. 
Everywhere we feel the Divine Presence 
in the World. Everywhere we hear the 
prophecy of the Speedy Victory. He is 
with His own. He is to come in glory on 
the clouds. Both of these emphases are 
carried throughout the Book, and neither 
can be neglected without losing the 
Book's perspective. Still, this is not all 
that needs to be said at this point. In- 
deed, we do not thus come to the Book's 
central meaning, for what the Book says 
over and over again is this: This Present 
Christ is to Prevail Completely by His 
41 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Cross. This aspect of the Book can not 
be made too conspicuous, for the Book is 
a Book of Redemption. In it we see 
bloodshed, for the sword of Caesar flashes 
throughout its pages. But in it we see 
still more conspicuously the shed-blood 
of Christ. As the Apostle at Calvary 
saw Christ lifted up as the propitiation 
for the sins of the whole world, saw Him 
as the Lamb of God, saw Him rather than 
the frenzied, howling mob, so the Seer 
makes his readers see the Lamb slain 
from the foundation of the world rather 
than the raging of the Beast, the martyr- 
fires rather than the blood flowing in 
the streets of Babylon. 

HI. 

It would be convenient to group under 
these three headings what the Book has 
to say about Christ: First, Christ the 
42 



The Book and Christ. 

Sufficient Grace; second, Christ Con- 
quering and to Conquer; third, Christ 
the Lamb of God, the Savior of the 
World. Perhaps, however, we shall come 
more easily to the vision of Christ that 
lay in the Seer's mind if we follow him 
through a few of the typical passages of 
the Book. This, at any rate, will be a 
more natural method of procedure. 

In the first chapter of the Book we 
have three separate and distinct revela- 
tions of Christ. Each one brings out 
varied aspects of His life. 

First there is the salutation (1 : 4-6) : 
"John to the seven Churches that are in 
Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him 
who is and who was and who is to come; 
and from the seven Spirits that are before 
His throne; and from Jesus Christ, who 
is the faithful witness, the first-born of 
the dead, and the ruler of the kings of 
43 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

the earth. Unto Him that loveth us, and 
loosed us from our sins by His blood; 
and He made us to be a Kingdom, to be 
priests unto His God and Father; to Him 
be the glory and the dominion for ever 
and ever. Amen." 

This passage would seem to be the 
Book in Epitome. Every phrase in it is 
important, and taken together these 
several aspects of Christ show our Lord 
risen and glorified. "Jesus Christ the 
Faithful Witness." The words remind 
us of Him who came into the world to 
bear witness to the Truth, and at once 
identify the Christ of the Book with the 
Christ of the Gospels. The Seer often 
lingers on the more earthly name of his 
Lord (12:17; 22:16), even sometimes 
speaking of Him simply as "Jesus," the 
offspring of David. He recalls His cruci- 
fixion at Jerusalem (11: 8 and 1:7), His 
44 



The Book and Christ. 

resurrection and exaltation to the Throne 
in heaven (3:21). And this human as- 
pect is not lost sight of even in the blaz- 
ing glory of the Throne. The words 
given above remind us, as the Fourth 
Gospel does so eloquently, of the truth 
that came by Jesus Christ concerning 
God, man, duty, destiny, the natural 
order, the spiritual order. "The first 
born of the dead." We read these words 
and the light of Easter morning breaks 
upon us; here is the Christ whom not 
even death could conquer, and who came 
in the fullness of life that all might re- 
ceive life from Him abundantly. "The 
ruler of the kings of the earth;" these 
words strike the dominant note of the 
Book concerning Christ. Throughout He 
is the Regal Christ, the King of kings and 
Lord of lords. It would not be wise to 
say that the Seer's thought of Christ was 
45 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

largely determined by the persistent ef- 
fort on the part of the empire to deify 
the emperors. Yet it is to miss much 
of the subtle suggestion of the Book if 
we do not see that the imperial cult was 
constantly in the Seer's mind. He had 
met it everywhere, in his ministry, in 
the markets as well as at the imposing 
shrines of the empire, and now in his 
imprisonment he is always aware that he 
is a prisoner because of his testimony, 
i. because of his refusal to "lord" 
Csesar — Jesus alone is Lord to the Seer, 
and He is "Lord of lords." It is well 
to mark that he does not say will be — 
Christ is already Ruler of the kings of the 
earth. "Unto Him that loveth us" — 
present tense again, speaking now of the 
tenderness of Christ. This is not, as has 
just been said, the prevailing revelation 
of Christ in the Book. The Christians 
46 



The Book and Christ. 

of the day needed to see the regalness of 
Christ — Christ glorified. Yet in no other 
book of the New Testament do we see 
the gentleness of Christ, His gracious- 
ness, more winsomely set forth than in 
this Book. 

"Unto Him . . . that loosed us 
from our sins by His blood; and made 
us to be kings and priests unto His God 
and Father." Here in the very first un- 
veiling of Christ we come face to face 
with human sin, the deep problem of the 
Book. Here also we come face to face 
with the atonement for sin, an atone- 
ment which includes an enduement as 
well as a reconciliation. In the twelfth 
chapter we hear again of those who have 
overcome by "the blood of the Lamb." 
In 7: 14 we read, "These are they which 
came out of great tribulation, and they 
washed their robes, and made them 
47 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



white in the blood of the Lamb." Words 
these are that, like the Book as a whole, 
take us through the noisy streets of the 
earthly Jerusalem out to the place of the 
cross; nay, that take us back to the 
foundation of the world and show us 
the Lamb Slain. 

Even more remarkable than any 
phrase in this passage, however, is the 
way in which Christ, the Jesus of the 
Gospels, is associated with God the 
Father and the Holy Spirit in this salu- 
tation. It is the way of the Book. It 
is so in the vision of the Throne and 
throughout. 

IV. 

After the salutation comes what may 
be called the Divine Asseveration. It is 
contained in the seventh and eighth 
verses. 

48 



The Book and Christ. 



The Seer does not speak these words; 
they are acclaimed by the Lord God Him- 
self. (See John 19: 37). This is most ef- 
fective dramatically. And it is necessary 
that these words should be spoken in an 
arrestive way, for they contain a truth 
of utmost importance, namely, the cer- 
tain, speedy, and glorious manifestation 
of Christ in Judgment, a coming which 
is not here nor elsewhere conceived of 
as physical, though it is certainly con- 
ceived of as real. 

This affirmation is repeated again and 
again, and reverberates throughout the 
Book (1:1; 4:1; 2:16; 3:3, 11, 20; 
22:6, 7, 20). 

It was a word much needed by the 
downcast Church, and it is emphasized, 
perhaps, for that reason, and because it 
is a fact ever-needing to be set forth to 
faith. This revelation of Christ as Judge 
49 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

is very suggestive. If any one wishes to 
follow it through the Book, let him study 
the letters to the Churches, where Christ 
is seen as Judge; 4 or let him study the 
Throne scene, where Christ opens the 
seals; 5 or the vision of the Sickle and 
the Harvest 6 — or yet again, the vision of 
the Great White Throne. 7 This Christ 
who is to come in glory is the Christ of 
Calvary, and thus again the humiliation 
and the exaltation of Christ are brought 
into closest juxtaposition. 

It is not possible to over-emphasize 
this Divine Asseveration, for the Seer has 
done all he could do to set it in bold relief. 

4 Chapters 2 and 3. 5 4 ff. 6 14 : 14-20. 
7 20: 11-15. 

I agree with Doctor Thomas: "The Apocalypse might be 
truly called the Gospel of the Parousia, for the Second Advent 
is the secret of its unfolding and the goal of its movement." 
("The Coming Presence," p. 164.) Only we must not think 
of Christ as absent and to return again. He is present now, 
and His Presence is to be yet more gloriously manifested. 

50 



The Book and Christ. 



V. 

This revelation is followed by one of 
the most beautiful visions in the Book 
(1 : 9-20). It might well be grouped with 
the vision of the Throne in heaven and 
the vision of the New Jerusalem, for each 
helps in the interpretation of the other, 
and the three are supremely beautiful. 

The splendor and beauty of this vision 
must be felt by every reader, yet more 
striking is the truth it conveys. The Seer 
turns and sees first the candlesticks, i. e. 9 
the Churches. He sees them separate 
and only candlesticks — utterly dependent. 
But as he looks he sees a figure like unto 
a "son of man." This phrase may be 
read in the light of Daniel or in the light 
of the Book of Enoch; but in view of all 
the color and the many touches of the 
Book of Revelation it certainly is better 
to read it in the light of the Master's 
51 



Heakt Problems and World Issues. 



usage and take it here as meaning that 
the Seer saw in this glorious figure, first 
of all, the Master with whom he had 
gone in and out of Galilee. Yet He is 
not simply the Jesus of other days. 
There is an unmistakable glory about 
Him. His robe is the vesture of dignity 
and authority. His girdle is a king's; its 
position indicates His priestliness. As 
the Seer gazes he sees that there stands 
before Him the Ancient of Days, His hair 
white like wool, His eyes a flame of fire, 
His feet like unto burnished brass, His 
voice as the sound of the sea, His coun- 
tenance bright as the sun. Out of His 
mouth comes the word that is a sword 
and in His hand is a chain of stars, for 
He is the Keeper of the Churches. 

We do not wonder that the Seer was 
overwhelmed, for as His Lord speaks he 
realizes that he is in the presence of the 
52 



The Book and Christ. 

Express Image of God. There is no mis- 
taking here. The Seer always sees his 
Lord in this glorified state. 

What does this vision say? It says 
first of all that Christ is not an absentee 
Christ, but a present Christ. It says 
secondly that this present Christ is 
abundantly able, His grace is sufficient. 
He carries easily the stars in His hand. 

The meaning of this vision is made 
clear in the letters to the Churches. We 
see Him there as the Risen, Regal, Glori- 
fied Christ of the pierced hands, exacting, 
mighty, gracious, ever-present, altogether 
sufficient. He pierces through all sophis- 
tries with His burning eyes. 8 He hates 
all compromise. 9 His rewards are for 
those only who overcome. He had in His 
keeping the crowns worthy to be striven 
for. He alone knows the way to the 

8 2: 18. 9 2: 6; 2:14; 2:20-23. 

53 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

fountains of the water of life 10 and to the 
tree of life. 11 

Yet, withal — and this is the important 
emphasis here — He comes to comfort 
and to strengthen the Church. He knows 
those who dwell where Satan's throne is. 
He knows the works, the toil, the tribula- 
tions of His own. Let them not be dis- 
couraged. Let them be faithful to the 
end. He will come quickly. Then "they 
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any 
more; neither shall the sun strike upon 
them, nor any heat — for He is their 
Shepherd and shall guide them unto the 
fountains of waters of life and shall wipe 
every tear from their eyes." (7: 16, 17). 

We need to exercise great care in our 
reading of the revelation concerning Jesus 
Christ in the Book. 

As has just been indicated, the Seer 

10 7: 17. "2:7; 22:2. 

54 



The Book and Christ. 

speaks of Christ very frequently as the 
Christ of tenderness and pity, touched 
with a feeling for our infirmities and as 
able and willing and eager to supply all 
our needs. Yet prevailingly it is not the 
gentleness of Christ that is brought 
home to us by the Book. That was not 
the aspect of Christ which needed to be 
made manifest to the Church then, for 
the Church of that time was pretty much 
brow-beaten and trampled upon. Csesar 
seemed almighty, Rome invincible, the 
Church weakness itself. So we see the 
regal aspect of Christ in this Book. How- 
ever, we should not misconceive this 
regalness. 

Some interpreters have felt that the 
Book is unduly harsh and characterized 
by a blood-thirstiness utterly beneath 
the sublime level of the gracious Gospel of 
Jesus. It is not difficult to get this im- 
55 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



pression. And it is all the more easy to 
get it because the Book was written in a 
time of flood and earthquake shock, in a 
time when the streets of earth were run- 
ning red with human blood, when human 
torches lighted the Roman gardens, and 
when every follower of Christ lived a 
hunted life. This turmoil and tumult 
and confusion are echoed throughout the 
Book. 

Empires and thrones were toppling 
over. A civilization was collapsing. The 
aspect of Christ that the Church needed 
to see was His mighty sufficiency. It 
needed to be made clear that the kings 
of the earth raged in vain. Precisely 
that aspect the Seer presents most fre- 
quently, and over and over again points 
to a manifestation yet to be made, 
glorious and splendid. 

This regal aspect of Christ is suggested 
56 



The Book and Christ. 

in many passages through chapters two 
and three and throughout the Book, and 
is made explicit in the vision of the Con- 
queror (19: 11-16). 

The Lord's Day vision is exceedingly 
important to a right interpretation of the 
Seer's way of setting forth his thought 
and to an understanding of his message. 
It should be noted that he speaks of the 
spiritual presence of Christ in the world 
after the most realistic manner. As he 
does here, so always. 12 Nor is any more 
important revelation given in the Book 
than this of the presence of Christ in the 
world here and now as the Sufficient 
Grace. 

12 Compare the realism of this vision with that in chapter 
twenty. There is no more reason for reading the vision in 
chapter one symbolically than there is for reading that in 
chapter twenty. 



57 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 
VI. 

This present Christ is to prevail. How? 
By His sacrifice. Let us turn to the fifth 
chapter. There we see the Seer gazing 
through a door into heaven. The Angel 
is to let him witness the opening of the 
seven-sealed book, to show him how the 
struggle between the Kingdom and the 
empire is to issue. But no one seems 
to be able to open the book, and the 
Seer begins to weep, when he hears a 
voice from the midst of the Throne, say- 
ing, "Weep not for the Lion of the tribe 
of Juda, the Root of David hath prevailed 
t@ open the book." The Seer has been 
able to see thus far only the glory of the 
Throne. Now he is to see his Lord! 
What a word that must have been to 
him! He turns and looks — and sees a 
Slain Lamb! It is the Christ he had 
met at Jordan, the Christ he had left 
58 



The Book and Christ. 

at Calvary hanging on the tree! Notice 
not a Lamb, but a Slain Lamb. For He 
prevails because He was slain. As the 
Seer gazes upon the scene all the heavenly 
spaces are suddenly filled with jubilant 
singing, as ten thousand times ten thou- 
sand and thousands of thousands of 
angelic voices celebrate the redemption 
that has come to people of every kindred 
and tongue and nation by the Blood of 
the Lamb. And the Seer sees that the 
Slain Lamb is full of wisdom and power. 
It is in the light of this revelation of 
Christ as the Slain Lamb that we are to 
read all the Seer says about the Conquer- 
ing Christ. 

How unfair we have been to this 
Book! How we have missed the mean- 
ing of the Seer! How we Occidentals 
have been held by a literalist caste of 
mind, utterly unable to catch the subtler 
59 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

significance of the gorgeous imagery of 
the Book. So we have enlarged upon the 
harshness of the Book, the vindictiveness 
of its author, and the unlikeness of his 
mind to the mind of the Master. Yet, 
as nowhere else, the idea of Redemption 
is set forth in this Book. We get the 
impression of harshness because we, in 
spite of what we say, take the author 
literally. It is hard not to do so, but to 
do so is to lose our way. All that he 
says, for instance, about overcoming, 
about warfare, about flashing swords 
must be, of course, taken symbolically. 
It is in no sense to be materialized. 
Christ conquers by a two-edged sword, a 
sword mightier than Caesar's. It is a 
splendid martial image. And as we see 
this Christ riding forth with His pano- 
plied hosts our hearts are stirred as by 
the rattle of drums and the flapping of 
60 



The Book and Christ. 

the banners of a marching army. Again 
and again the bugle note of battle, 
mighty-trumpet-toned, sounds above the 
Book! But what is the sword of Christ? 
It is His Word. The Seer says, as Paul 
does, that the Kingdom goes forward by 
the foolishness of preaching. The Seer 
was not fomenting rebellion. True, he 
was protesting against lording any Csesar 
— better die than do that. Not thus 
shall the Kingdom come. Yet the Seer 
knows that those who resort to the 
sword must perish by sword. 13 Not 
such is the patience of the saints. To 
compromise as the Nicolaitans 14 sug- 
gested was to become utterly paganized 
again. To die as Antipas and hosts of 
others had done was to sow the seed of 
the Kingdom. 15 Life is by death, prog- 

13 13: 10. 14 For an excellent treatment of this subject, 
see Ramsay's "Letters to the Churches," pp. 298-302, 335-343. 
15 See Acts 14:22. 

61 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

gress by sacrifice, the Kingdom by blood! 
Thus Caesar rages in vain! All he can 
do — he and his minions — is to strike down 
the followers of Christ. But every mar- 
tyrdom is an advance. It is the coming 
of Christ again, the victory over the 
world. 

Some writers on the Book, especially 
liberally minded modernish writers, seem 
to assume as a matter of course that the 
Seer was a harsh, vindictive, revengeful 
soul. Such a conception is an outrage on 
the author and the Book, and due to 
literalism. The Seer once did want to 
call fire down from heaven. He recalls 
the incident as readily as his modern 
annotators. He had been known as the 
Son of Thunder. His was a mighty soul. 
One never thinks of John as anemic or 
as dilettante! He was a pioneer. He 
was a conqueror. He was an empire 
62 



The Book and Christ. 

builder. But he has been through the 
School of Calvary, Let us fix that in our 
minds. Now he sets forth that only the 
false prophets call down, or try to call 
down, fire from heaven, for the patience 
of the saints is the conquest by love, not 
by the sword. He knows now the mean- 
ing of the suffering servant. He sees 
that the strong must carry the weak. 
He has entered into the meaning of the 
blood. He knows now what the Baptist 
meant when he called Jesus the Lamb of 
God. He uses that designation more than 
any other. He sees that what Moses did 
for the Israelitish horde coming up out 
of the brick fields of Egypt by the way 
of the wilderness his Lord has done for 
the race from the foundation of the 
world, for He has been the Suffering 
Servant. Hence the heavenly hosts sing 
the song of Moses and the Lamb. Cal- 
63 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

vary has given the Seer a new vision of 
history. He sees now that Calvary was 
the mighty climax of Christ's life and 
ministry. Christ was not a victim at 
Calvary, a lamb. He laid down His 
life Himself. No man took it from Him. 
He was the Slain Lamb. The mob did 
not prevail at Calvary. It raged in vain. 
Christ prevailed then. By His death He 
lives more abundantly. Thus He still 
prevails. He prevails by dying. He 
saves by His blood. He prevails by His 
martyrs. This is the patience of the 
saints. This is the great lesson to be 
learned in the School of Calvary. 

Thus we come to the secret of the 
power and the gentleness of the Conquer- 
ing Christ. As we shall see further on 
in the Book, this is the profound fact 
about God. He is like Christ. But just 
now, as we grasp the Seer's great central 
64 



The Book and Christ. 

idea of sacrificial love, which never fail- 
eth, let us once for all put aside the crude 
opinion that the Book stands for a 
materialized Christianity. It stands for 
a Christianity that comes to focus at 
Calvary. Let us also grasp the truth 
that the Seer everywhere represents 
Christ as conquering by His death, and 
not by His return. 

VII. 

There is one other question calling 
for answer in this connection before we 
shall see clearly the Seer's vision of 
Christ. Christ prevails by His Cross. 
What does it mean for Christ to prevail? 
When He has utterly prevailed, what 
shall we have? The marriage of the 
Lamb! 16 The end of the redemptive 
travail is a new humanity completely 

16 21: 2; 19:17. 

65 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



identified in spirit with Christ! 17 The 
union symbolized under the image of the 
marriage of the Lamb — a most audacious 
image — is more spiritual and more inti- 
mate than that set forth under the simili- 
tude of the vine and the branches, for 
the latter is a vital union of a simple 
type. But the union of Christ and His 
own is a union of intellects, the banding 
together of hearts in holy affection, the 
coalescing of wills. It is, as the Seer 
says, a heavenly marriage. It is thus, 
of course, not an outward Kingdom that 
Christ sets up, at Jerusalem or any- 
where else. The Seer has been graduated 
not simply from the Judaic School of the 
Apocalyptists, but from the School of 
Calvary, where one of the great lessons 

17 In an article (see Hastings' D. B., Book of Revelation), 
with which I find myself frequently taking issue, yet which 
abounds in fine insights, Professor F. C. Porter says: "The 
Christian community was His greatest deed. He created it 
by His redeeming death.'' (1:6; 5:9-10.) 

66 



The Book and Christ. 

learned is that the Kingdom is inward 
and spiritual. So we hear through him 
those beautiful words: "Behold, I stand 
at the door and knock: if any man hear 
My voice, and open the door, I will 
come in to him, and will sup with him, 
and he with Me." 

VIII. 

We should catch the sweep and lift 
of the Seer's thought. At the beginning 
of time he sees a Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world. At the end of 
the redemptive travail is a new humanity 
blood bought and blood washed, a hu- 
manity reigning upon the earth as priests 
and kings. And the law of that humanity 
is the law of love, the mind of Christ, the 
gentleness and the power of the Slain f 
Lamb! We come to love at last because 
He loved us at first. 

67 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Now, if we read what the Seer has to 
say about Christ as the Truth, the Life, 
the Judge, the Conqueror, the Savior in 
the light of the vision of the Slain Lamb 
in the midst of the throne, and also in the 
light of the Vision of the New Humanity, 
we shall be able to master something of 
the glory and beauty and spiritual sig- 
nificance of the Seer's conception of 
Christ. 



68 



THE BOOK AND THE CHURCH. 



CHRISTIANITY was destined by its very nature not to 
save, but to destroy the empire: at the same time their 
outward correspondence was not less full of meaning. All 
that was progressive in the Old World was united under one 
supreme head at the time when the new faith was revealed 
which should bind the universe together in a sovereign unity. 
Peace won by arms ushered in Him who revealed the peace of 
life in God. So it was that the only two powers which have 
claimed absolute dominion over mankind appeared together. 
For three centuries each followed the necessary law of its 
development. Then at last the Empire was seen to have 
failed; and the Church was seen to contain the forces which 
could regenerate and rule the world. Diocletian, when he 
finally organized the old power of the State, with the greatest 
political genius gave the occasion for the concentration of the 
power of the Church and prepared the way for its victory. — 
Westcott, " The Two Empires: The Church and the World" 



THE BOOK AND THE CHURCH. 

The Book is a revelation of Jesus 
Christ, the unveiling of His meaning and 
glory, until at last we see Him stand 
forth as the Word of God, the great Life- 
giver, the Ruler of the kings of the earth, 
the Savior of the world, the Judge of all 
men. But it is, first of all, a revelation 
of Jesus Christ to the Church. It is not 
possible to unseal this Book until we 
recognize in it a pastoral letter to the 
Church of the Seer's time, which, because 
it was a message to its day, will be a 
message to all time. As we read it we 
shall learn that the Seer never loses sight 
of the Church, that he always speaks to 
her with authority, with knowledge, with 
insight, with tender sympathy. He knows 
71 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

the weakness of the Church. He knows 
her lack of faith. He knows her sorrows. 
He will have no compromise on her part. 
He would make clear to her the riches of 
Christ. 

I. 

It will be best for us in this study to 
confine our attention chiefly to chapters 
two and three, known as the letters to 
the Churches. But it will be well to 
keep in mind that the Book as a whole 
is a pastoral letter — in apocalyptic form, 
it is true, but still a letter — and that as a 
letter from the Shepherd of the sheep to 
His flock it urges the Church to look up 
to her Lord and live (2-3), to see her life 
and work under the aspect of eternity 
(4-11), under no circumstances to sur- 
render to the seductions of the world 
(12-20), for it is her duty to make ready 
for her Lord as a bride for the bride- 
72 



The Book and the Church. 



groom (21-22), for salvation is entering 
fully into the mind of Christ. 

II. 

Whatever else may be said of chapters 
two and three, and, in fact, of the whole 
Book, for that matter, we may say this: 
They reflect an actual historical situation. 
To be sure, the Seer speaks of seven 
Churches, and we may gather from that 
symbolical number that his message is 
to the whole Church, and yet also to 
seven actual Churches, for the tone of 
authority which rings throughout these 
messages, as well as the intimate knowl- 
edge of varying local conditions, indicates 
that much. 

The following statement from Ram- 
say ("Letters to the Seven Churches," 
p. 80) covers both these points: "It is 
a psychological impossibility that these 
73 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Letters to the Asian Churches could have 
been written except by one who felt him- 
self, and had the right to feel himself, 
charged with the superintendence and 
oversight of all those Churches, invested 
with Divinely given and absolute author- 
ity over them, gifted by long knowledge 
and sympathy with insight into their 
nature and circumstances, able to under- 
stand the line on which each was de- 
veloping, and finally bringing to a focus 
in one moment of supreme inspiration, 
whose manner none but himself could 
understand or imagine, all the powers he 
possessed of knowledge, of intellect, of 
intensest love, of gravest responsibility, 
of sympathy with the Divine life, of com- 
mission from his Divine Teacher." 

We know that John came to his 
dominion in the Kingdom of Christ 
largely after the passing of James and 
74 



The Book and the Church. 

Peter and Paul. By his time the gos- 
pel of good tidings had been preached 
throughout the provinces, in the bar- 
racks, in the capitals of the world. Its 
messengers had sailed in many crafts and 
run along the great highways sowing the 
seed of the Kingdom, witnessing to the 
great truths of Christianity and the great 
grace of God in Jesus Christ. By his 
time companies of men had been swept 
into higher experiences, as, for instance, 
at Jerusalem under Peter, at Samaria 
under Philip, at Ephesus under Paul. 
The Christian movement had steadily 
gained momentum. So miraculously had 
the Word spread and been glorified that 
a new situation had arisen: the Church 
and the empire confronted each other. 
Precisely such a situation is reflected in 
the Book of Revelation, especially the 
latter part of it. There we see the 
75 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Church and the empire confronting each 
other. And the Church, strong com- 
pared with what it had been twenty-five 
years earlier, was weakness itself when 
compared with the mailed figure of the 
malignant spirit of the world as em- 
bodied in the empire. 

It is at such a juncture that the Seer 
speaks, seeking to hearten the Church, 
and to interpret to the Church its per- 
plexing situation and its great mission. 

If there were any question on this 
score, the reference to the Nicolaitans 
would be sufficient to indicate clearly an 
actual historic situation. From chap- 
ter 2 : 6 it is clear that the Seer discerned 
in that party a tendency of utmost men- 
ace to the Church. In chapter 2: 15 his 
intense feeling flames forth again in 
vehement protest. From the reference 
to the leaders of that movement as of a 
76 



The Book and the Church. 

spirit kindred to that of Jezebel's and of 
Balaam's, we may conclude that the 
Nicolaitans were advocates of some 
kind of compromise on the part of the 
Christians with Paganism. 1 It seems 
probable that they were converts com- 
mercially and socially connected with 
pagan usages and customs, so that a 
come-outer policy rigidly adhered to 
would have embarrassed them greatly. 
What harm could there be in eating meat 
that had been offered to idols? What 
harm could there be in recognizing 
Caesar's claim to divinity? What were a 
few grains of incense, anyway? But the 
Seer saw that all this was a specious plea 
for acquiescence in a pagan standard of 
morality and life, so he thundered against 
it. It is well to note that the letters re- 
veal that this tendency was not present 

1 See Ramsay, Swete, and others. 

77 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

in all the Churches, nor equally strong 
in all the Churches where it was present. 
This is one index of the specific character 
of each message. There are many such 
indications. Each Church has its peculiar 
peril and weakness. To each a particular, 
personal word is spoken. Even a hasty 
reading reveals the material wealth of 
the Laodicean Church. We easily get 
the force of the phrase "Satan's seat," 
and understand that Pergamos was an 
especially trying place. 

It is not necessary that I go into de- 
tails on this score. I prefer to empha- 
size two points concerning the Church 
that stand out clearly in these chapters 
two and three, and, indeed, throughout 
the Book. 

First, the Church is weak, and all but 
overborne by the world. 



78 



The Book and the Church. 



III. 

There should be no misunderstanding 
of what has been said as to the strength 
of the Church. It was weak enough 
when compared with the world it was to 
evangelize and Christianize. 

We speak of "the Church of Ephesus." 
The phrase seems almost ironical. No 
reporter, even, would ever have heard 
of it. The secular historian practically 
ignored it. The Seer does not try to 
evade the fact of its insignificance, hu- 
manly speaking. Indeed, he dwells upon 
it. He represents the Churches as both 
weak and separate. Their isolation one 
from the other is suggested in the vision 
which shows them as candlesticks, not as 
a candelabra. He knows, too — in fact, 
he knows only too well — that these weak 
Churches are not only confronted by the 
world, but invaded by it. With what 
79 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

faithful pastoral spirit does he insist 
upon the growing worldliness of his 
Churches. A careful study of the second 
and third chapters shows that every 
society mentioned has been deeply af- 
fected by its environment. Set to trans- 
form the world, the Seer reminds them 
that the world has been making them 
conform to it. For instance: The Church 
of Ephesus, located in a city noted for 
sudden and radical changes, has lapsed 
from its first love. The city of Smyrna 
was noted for its fidelity to Csesar. The 
Church in Smyrna reflected its environ- 
ment, and was seeking to hold on, though 
ready to faint. Pergamos was a center 
of imperial power. The Church there 
had become intimidated. The Thyatiran 
Church, affected by its neighborhood, is 
represented as compromising. Sardis, 
apparently built on a rock, was really 
80 



The Book and the Church. 

built on mud. The Church of Sardis had 
the form of righteousness, but not the 
power. Philadelphia was a gate-city, 
and the Church of Philadelphia seemed 
overawed by the very bigness of its op- 
portunity; while the Church in Laodicea, 
a prosperous commercial center, had be- 
come utterly materialized. 

How far these tendencies toward 
worldliness had gone it is difficult to de- 
termine. If we are to judge by the Seer's 
fierce denunciations, they had gone far. 
At any rate, he saw the peril and, like a 
faithful shepherd, gave warning. If the 
Nicolaitans were, as has been sug- 
gested, those who sought to be true to 
the Church without withdrawing from the 
guilds and fraternities and varied social 
and commercial practices of the time, we 
get an excellent insight into the problem 
with which the Church was confronted. 
• 81 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

It is not difficult to get a right opinion 
concerning the Church of Ephesus. It 
had been born in a revival. It had had 
great leaders, Apollos, Paul, Timothy, 
John. It had done much. It was still 
busy. It was impatient of evil and 
heresy. Yet it had lost its first love. 
How searching the pastor-like criticism 
of the Seer! It was still correct, but 
passionless. Its enthusiasm had begun 
to decay. Its sword was in limp hands. 

The Seer's picture of the Church of 
Laodicea is even more suggestive. It 
reveals a Church large and prosperous. 2 
Its constituency was wealthy, its con- 
gregation well dressed, 3 its finances in 
excellent condition. Some of the cloth 
manufacturers belonged to it. 4 The maker 
of medicines was also in its following. 5 
But the Seer represents that the Laod- 

2 3: 17. 3 3: 17. 4 3: 18. 5 3: 18. 

82 



The Book and the Church. 



icean Church lacked in spiritual vision 
and was poor spiritually. It had no zeal. 
It had no evangelistic power. It cared 
not for Christ's counsel. Indeed, the 
Seer startles us, if we read aright, by 
suggesting that Christ had been utterly 
crowded out. 6 

This is the first point the Book makes 
concerning the Church. It is weak, 
vacillating, uncertain of itself, all but 
trampled out by the world. But the 
Seer is not chastising the Church. He is 
seeking to arouse it — to recall it, to re- 
gird it for its great task. 

IV. 

We come to the second point: Weak 
as it is, overborne as it is, the Church is 
to overcome the world. 

Would we be very far from the truth 



6 3: 20. 



83 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

if we were to say the mission of the 
Church, God's messenger to the nations, 
is so to witness to the sacrificial, atoning, 
propitiating, redeeming love of God mani- 
fested in Christ Jesus as that the proud, 
imperial, rebellious spirit of man may be 
brought by the way of penitence and 
faith into the sacrificial love of God, into 
completeness of spiritual life, into the 
stature of the fullness of Christ? 

As I read it, that is something of what 
the Book of Revelation says about the 
mission of the Church. And as I read 
that Book I understand that the Seer 
is seeking to interpret to the Church its 
great mission and to send it forth with 
new courage on that mission. Both these 
results he accomplishes by unveiling the 
glorified Christ to the Church. 

It is difficult for us to appreciate the 
importance of this service rendered by 
84 



The Book and the Church. 



the Seer. Bear in mind that the Church 
was reeling under the persecution of the 
empire. It was faint from a literal loss 
of blood, and ready to give up the ter- 
rible ordeal. 

I have already spoken of the unveil- 
ing of Christ in the Book. We can see 
what this must have meant in the way 
of heartening the Church. The Seer was 
helping them to see Jesus in His glory as 
King of kings and Judge of all the earth. 
He had pressed home upon their thought 
the sufficiency of Christ as Savior. Too 
much emphasis can not be laid upon the 
point that the Seer above all things else 
sought to make the Church see that 
Christ was present with His Church and 
that He would prevail. Nor can too 
much be made of the fact that the vision 
of the Glorified Christ as with His 
Church and yet quickly to be made 
85 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



manifest more gloriously 7 is given in the 
very first chapter of the Book. 

It is also important that we study the 
revelation of Christ made to each Church. 
Thus we complete the study already 
made of Christ. I need no more than 
indicate my meaning — Ephesus is slipping 
back — Christ is represented to Ephesus 
as holding the stars in His hand. He 
can hold her fast. Smyrna is gasping, 
faint — Christ is revealed to Smyrna as 
" alive for evermore." Pergamos trembles 
before the sword of Caesar — Christ is re- 
vealed to Pergamos with the two-edged 
sword. Thyatira is compromising — the 
Lord comes to Thyatira with eyes that 
penetrate all make-believes. Sardis has 
the form but not the power of godliness — 

7 1 would emphasize the distinction between Christ as 
present with His Church and Christ as yet to be more glo- 
riously manifested. The latter insistence is one of the two 
major messages. 

86 



The Book and the Church. 

Jesus is revealed as the quickening spirit. 
Philadelphia is set in the gateway of the 
nations, but seems unable to enter the 
door — the Lord comes to Philadelphia 
with the keys. Laodicea is full of the 
world, all but wholly materialized — the 
manifestation of the Lord to Laodicea is 
a manifestation of the wrath of the Lamb. 

Thus the Seer makes clear that he 
knows the difficulty of the Church's 
position, yet his insistence is unyielding. 
The Church, weak as it is, must con- 
quer. The Church's mission is the vic- 
tory over the world, or, as we may put 
it in the phrase of our own time, "the 
Christianization " of all life, all customs, 
all institutions; the bringing of all 
thoughts, all affections, all purposes into 
obedience to Christ. 

The Book has back of it, under it, 
the assumption that the Church is, 
87 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

through Christ, to constitute a new com- 
munity, and this assumption finds ex- 
plicit expression again and again. 

V. 

Possibly this sounds too modern to 
be really a true reading of the Seer's 
message. If so, then read these words 
from Findlay's "Fellowship in the Eternal 
Life," pp. 359-362, where he is com- 
menting on 1 John 5:1-5. His words cer- 
tainly might have been used to describe 
the situation reflected in the Book. At 
the same time they are so interesting in 
the light of current theological thought 
that they may well be quoted at some 
length: 

"It was a dismal world St. John sur- 
veyed — the world which had Domitian 
for its emperor, Juvenal for its poet, and 
Tacitus for its historian. In all directions 
88 



The Book and the Church. 

men lay crushed beneath the tyrannies 
and evils of the age. He and his com- 
rades alone upon that wide arena stand 
erect and free; nowhere but in the Chris- 
tian camp are there found confidence and 
resourcefulness: 'Who is he that over- 
cometh the world,' the Apostle cries, 
'save he that believeth that Jesus is the 
Son of God?' Victory is the word in 
which, at this threatening hour, the last 
of the apostles sums up his personal ex- 
perience and records the issue of the 
first grand campaign of Christ's Kingdom, 
during which its future course and his- 
tory had been rehearsed. He sees 'the 
darkness passing away, and the true 
light already shining.' So Jesus had 
been bold to say, with Gethsemane and 
Calvary awaiting Him, 'Be of good 
cheer: I have overcome the world!' 
(John 16:33). 

89 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

"St. John thus celebrates the end of 
the first century. We have witnessed the 
end of the nineteenth; and still the fight 
goes on — a weary warfare! As one crisis 
after another passes, the war of the ages 
opens into larger proportions; it sweeps 
over a wider area and draws into its 
compass more completely the forces of 
humanity — this immense combat between 
the sin of man and the Grace of God in 
Christ. The end is not yet. The powers 
of evil recover from defeat; one and 
another of the heads of 'the wild beast' 
are 6 smitten unto death/ and 6 his death- 
stroke is healed, and the whole earth 
wonders after' him again (Rev. 13:3). 
The advance of Christ's Kingdom calls 
into the field at every stage new op- 
posers; treasons and schisms, and col- 
lusions and compromises with the enemy, 
have caused innumerable repulses and 
90 



The Book and the Church. 

indefinite delays in the subjugation of 
the world to the rule of Christ, which 
seemed imminent to the fervent hope of 
His early followers. Still their faith re- 
mains — our faith — after this long testing, 
the rallying center of the spiritual forces, 
the fountain of hope and refreshment for 
all that is best in mankind. Everything 
else has changed: empires, civilizations, 
social systems, religions, and philosophies 
have gone down into the gates of Hades; 
but the Church of Jesus Christ survives 
and spreads, the imperishable institution 
of our race. Still the Gospel shines out 
over the storm-swept shores, the one 
lighthouse for the laboring ship of human 
destiny. The Christian faith, as St. 
John proclaimed and held it, is the most 
vital thing in the world, the most active 
and ameliorative factor of modern his- 
tory. 'Neither is their salvation in any 
91 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

other;' up to this date 'no other name 
has been given under heaven amongst 
men, whereby we must be saved.' Noth- 
ing since its coming has touched human 
nature to the like saving effect; nothing 
else at the present time takes hold of it 
so freshly, and with an influence so power- 
ful for good, and for good so manifold, 
as the doctrine which St. John calls 'Our 
faith.' 

"The struggle in which John the 
Apostle was engaged as a foremost com- 
batant, while it has swelled into world- 
wide dimensions, has assumed features 
outwardly far different from those of his 
times. But the identity of principle is 
profound. And the conflict of faith in 
the twentieth century, in some of its 
conditions, repeats the experience of the 
first century, more closely than has been 
the case at any intervening epoch. Now, 
92 



The Book and the Church. 

as then, the contest centers in the primary 
facts of the Gospel-record, and in the 
nature and authority of Jesus Christ as 
thereby authenticated; other issues are 
brushed aside. Once more we 'have the 
same conflict which' we 'saw to be in' 
St. Paul and St. John. Present-day dis- 
cussions are going to the root of things 
in Christianity; and Christians may re- 
joice in the fact, since a conflict so radical 
should be the more decisive. The testi- 
mony of the apostles to Jesus Christ the 
Son of God, and the living work of His 
Spirit amongst men: these two demon- 
strations, just as at the beginning, supply 
the ground on which faith and unbelief 
are now contending. Here lie the burn- 
ing questions of the hour; other debates 
momentous as they have been and still 
may be — concerning the authority of 
Church or Bible, the validity of Orders 
93 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



and Sacraments, or the doctrines of 
Election and Free Will — have fallen into 
abeyance in comparison of these. Who 
was Jesus Christ? Does He live and work 
in the world since His death on Calvary? 
and if so, where and how? This is what 
men are wanting to know; and who of 
those that have known Him can tell us 
better, with more intimate knowledge 
and transparent sincerity, than His serv- 
ant John?" 

VI. 

The Seer seems to lose sight of the 
Churches after the third chapter. But 
he does not. He thinks of the unity of 
the Church rather than its separateness 
from thence on, it is true, for he is think- 
ing of the Church as confronted by the 
world. But every vision has the Church 
in view, and at last we see her come forth 
glorious and beautiful, adorned as a 
94 



The Book and the Church. 

Bride. That was the Seer's faith in the 
Church. And his faith was justified. 
His appeal was not in vain. The Church 
did not die from loss of blood. She arose 
from the martyr fires purified and dis- 
ciplined and furnished with an uncon- 
querable faith. History records that 
fact. And history must give the Book 
large credit for the victory the Church 
gained over the world, for certainly it is 
not possible to exaggerate the quickening 
power of the trumpet appeal of the great 
Seer. 



95 



THE BOOK AND THE GOD 
OF HOLY LOVE. 



7 



''pHE great section of the book now completed ends, as it 
began, with a vision of the heavenly order. In 4: Iff a, 
door is set open in heaven, through which the Seer is able to 
discern the Throne of God and its surroundings; in 11:19 
the Temple of God in heaven is opened, and the Ark of the 
New Covenant is seen standing in the Celestial Sanctuary. 
Moreover, the whole series of visions which intervenes between 
these two revelations is full of heavenly things and persons. 
Most of the scenes are laid in heaven; the rest, though on 
earth, are illuminated by the presence of superhuman agents. 

Yet, as a whole, the section is concerned with movements 
which find their sphere on the earth. The purpose of the 
celestial scenery and the celestial agencies which are employed 
is not to take the attention of the reader from contemporary 
or coming events, but to lead him to connect these with the 
invisible powers by which they are controlled, and to let the 
light of heaven fall upon the earthly tragedy. The Throne 
and the Temple in the (i^rovpavia) are seen to be the ultimate 
source of the energies by which human history is carried to 
its goal. But it is in human history that the interests of the 
prophecy are centered. — Swete, " The Apocalypse of St Jchn" 
pp. 1^5-6. 



THE BOOK AND THE GOD 
OF HOLY LOVE. 

The Book of Revelation divides nat- 
urally into two parts, the first part ending 
with chapter eleven. So complete is this 
first part that it has been remarked, had 
the remainder of the Book by some un- 
toward circumstance been lost to us, we 
should never have missed it. I think we 
can not all wholly agree to that; but in 
any event we must, all of us, be thankful 
that the last portion was not thus lost, 
for in it we find some most sublime out- 
looks and much ground for hope and 
courage. 

The section which we are now con- 
sidering (Chapters 4-11) has caused no 
little difficulty to interpreters, for aside 
99 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

from its difficult symbolism is a time 
reference which, taken by itself under 
a rational construction, would place the 
writing of the Book before the Fall of 
Jerusalem. But both strong internal and 
external evidence point to a later date for 
portions of the Book at least. Commen- 
tators have divided in their attempts to 
meet this difficulty, some giving the ref- 
erence to Jerusalem a spiritual import, 
making it point to a spiritual Israel, and 
others holding that the Seer in that pas- 
sage (11:8) was quoting from an earlier 
Apocalypse, while still others have denied 
the unity of the Book. 

Perhaps a satisfactory solution of the 
problem is to be found in the earlier 
origin of this entire first part of the 
Book, or at least of the section covered 
by chapters four to eleven, the Book as 
a whole being completed later. Certainly 
100 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 



no careful reader thinks of the Apocalypse 
as the vision of a single night. It is such 
a Book as comes out of much watching 
and praying. Its actual construction 
may well have covered a period of some 
years, during which time the several 
revelations were being put together into 
the Revelation to the Churches — to the 
Churches of Asia (1:4) and to the Church 
of all time (22: 6-21). 

The Seer in the spirit standing at the 
door of heaven sees a throne of blazing 
light; from it extends a hand clasping a 
seven-sealed book — the book of destiny. 
In the midst of the Throne he sees One 
like unto a Slain Lamb, who takes the 
book and begins to remove the seals. 
When the first seal is opened the Seer 
beholds a white horse with a rider carry- 
ing a bow, symbolizing conflict; the 
second seal is opened and a red horse 
101 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

comes forth, his rider carrying a sword 
to take peace from the earth; the third 
seal is opened and a black horse comes 
forth, his rider carrying a pair of bal- 
ances, symbolizing famine; the fourth 
seal is opened and a pale horse comes 
forth with Death riding upon him. When 
the fifth seal is opened the Seer beholds 
under the altars those who had been 
slain for the Word of God, and he hears 
them cry, "How long, O Lord, holy and 
true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our 
blood on them that dwell on the earth?" 
Then the sixth seal is opened: "And I 
saw when he opened the sixth seal, and 
there was a great earthquake; and the 
sun became black as sackcloth of hair, 
and the whole moon became as blood; 
and the stars of the heaven fell unto the 
earth, as a fig tree casteth her unripe 
figs when she is shaken of a great wind. 
102 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 

And the heaven was removed as a scroll 
when it is rolled up; and every mountain 
and island were moved out of their 
places. And the kings of the earth, and 
the princes and the chief captains, and 
the rich and the strong, and every bond- 
man and freeman, hid themselves in the 
caves and in the rocks of the mountains; 
and they say to the mountains and to 
the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from 
the face of Him that sitteth on the 
throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: 
for the great day of their wrath is come; 
and who is able to stand?" (6: 12-17.) 

Thus the future opens before the Seer, 
conflict, slaughter, famine, death, the day 
of wrath. Before the final seal is opened 
there is a pause in which the Seer wit- 
nesses the sealing of a great multitude 
to be spared in the great and terrible 
day. 

103 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Verses 9-17, Chapter 7, are important. 
They serve first to emphasize the right- 
eousness of the retributions that have 
come upon the earth, making clear both 
the invincibility and the stainlessness of 
God's righteousness, God who is the Holy 
God, whose throne is an unstained white. 
Secondly, these verses press upon the 
attention of the Seer's fellow-sufferers, as 
upon his own mind, that the fidelity of 
Christ's own is not in vain. It will be 
well for the reader of the Book to make 
a special note of the beautiful and tender 
aspect of the Eternal revealed in this 
passage. Thirdly, these verses serve to 
set in wonderful relief the terrible woes 
which follow in rapid succession and with 
most dramatic effect. 

At last the seventh seal is opened, 
and there is silence — silence, as it seemed 
to the Seer, for half an hour — an ominous 
104 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 

silence presaging judgment. As this seal 
is opened we realize that we are not so 
much going forward as recapitulating. 
The judgments are coming to pass. God 
has heard the prayers of His people, and 
the censer with the fire of Divine Wrath 
has been hurled to the earth. The 
seventh seal is given under the sounding 
of seven startling trumpets, the three 
last of which bear upon human life di- 
rectly and are called woes. The trumpets 
sound and calamity after calamity falls 
upon the earth, not utterly destroying it, 
but grievously afflicting it. Vegetation 
is blighted, the springs and rivers are de- 
filed, the light of the sun and moon is 
darkened. Locusts and horsemen, sub- 
limely terrible symbols of retribution, 
sweep with devouring fury across the 
earth. The judgments are swift and 
harrowing, but the world upon which 
105 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

they fall is an unrepentant world, wor- 
shiping idols and devils, full of murders, 
sorceries, fornications, and thefts. 

The Seer, as the reader, is plainly 
overwhelmed when a mighty angel de- 
scends to the earth and, striding the sea 
and the land, with uplifted hand swears 
by the Living God that there shall be no 
longer delay, for the purpose of God is 
to be manifest when the last trumpet 
sounds, as it is about to do. 1 

Meantime the Seer is reminded that 
other revelations will be given him. But 
as he gazes he sees the monster from the 
pit wreak his fury upon the Church, 
slaying her prophets in the city where 
their Lord was crucified and leaving their 
dead bodies in the streets of the city. 
And denizens 2 of the earth rejoice over 
them and make merry and send gifts to 

1 10:6. 2 11: 10. 

106 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 

one another, because they have done, 
they think, with these troublers of Israel. 
But even as they make merry the earth 
shakes, the buildings of the city move 
from their foundations, and the great 
city is swallowed up in wrath. It is the 
last woe. The last trumpet has sounded, 
and the Seer hears a multitude of heav- 
enly voices saying: "The kingdom of 
the world is become the Kingdom of our 
Lord and of His Christ: and He shall 
reign for ever and ever. And the four 
and twenty elders who sit before God 
on their thrones fell upon their faces and 
worshiped God, saying, We give Thee 
thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who 
art and who wast because Thou hast 
taken Thy great power and didst reign. 
And the nations were wroth, and Thy 
wrath came, and the time of the dead 
to be judged, and the time to give their 
107 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

reward to Thy servants the prophets, 
and to the saints, and to them that fear 
Thy name, the small and the great; and 
to destroy them that destroy the earth." 

Such in meagerest outline is the move- 
ment of events as given in this section of 
the Book. I have tried to give the matter 
as I think it comes to one at the first 
hasty reading. And if I do not misjudge, 
a great deal of emphasis has been placed 
upon the symbolism of the Book, its weird 
and awful figures. Yet to put the em- 
phasis there is to miss the deeper reason 
of the Seer. I want to ask now, What is 
the meaning of all these seals and trump- 
ets,, thunders and lightnings, fires and 
earthquakes, angels and monsters, that 
come before us in sickening thickness in 
this Scripture? 

I began with the opening of the seals. 
I really had no right to do that. The 
108 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 

Seer does not begin that way. The open- 
ing of the seals is not the all-important 
matter in this section of the Book. The 
Seer begins with the vision of the throne 
in heaven. And so must we. Let us look 
again: 

"After these things I saw and, be- 
hold, a door opened in heaven, and the 
former voice that I heard, a voice as of a 
trumpet spoke with me, saying, Come 
up hither, and I will show thee the things 
which must come to pass hereafter. 
Straightway I was in the Spirit, and, be- 
hold, there was a throne, set in heaven, 
and one sitting upon the throne; and he 
that sat was to look upon like a jasper 
stone and a sardius; and there was a 
rainbow round about the throne, like an 
emerald to look upon. And round about 
the throne were four and twenty thrones; 
and upon the thrones I saw four and 
109 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

twenty elders sitting, arrayed in white 
garments; and on their heads crowns of 
gold. And out of the throne proceeded 
lightnings and voices and thunders. And 
there were seven lamps of fire burning be- 
fore the throne, which are the seven 
spirits of God; and before the throne as 
it were a sea of glass like unto crystal; 
and in the midst of the throne, and round 
about the throne, four living creatures 
full of eyes before and behind. And the 
first creature was like a lion, and the 
second creature like a calf, and the third 
creature had a face as of a man, and the 
fourth creature was like a flying eagle. 
And the four living creatures having each 
one of them six wings, are full of eyes 
round about and within: and they have 
no rest day and night, saying, Holy, 
holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, 
who was, and who is, and who is to come. 
110 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 

And when the living creatures shall give 
glory and honor and thanks to Him that 
sitteth on the throne, to Him that liveth 
for ever and ever, the four and twenty 
elders shall fall down before Him that 
sitteth on the throne, and shall worship 
Him that liveth for ever and ever, and 
shall cast their crowns before the throne, 
saying, Worthy art Thou, our Lord and 
our God, to receive the glory and the 
honor, and the power: for Thou didst 
create all things, and because of Thy 
will they were and were created. 

"And I saw in the right hand of Him 
that sat on the throne a book written 
within and on the back, close sealed with 
seven seals. And I saw a strong angel 
proclaiming with a great voice, Who is 
worthy to open the book and to loose the 
seals thereof? And no one in the heaven 
or on the earth or under the earth was 
111 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

able to open the book, or to look thereon. 
And I wept much, because no one was 
found worthy to open the book, or to 
look thereon: and one of the elders saith 
unto me, Weep not; behold, the Lion 
that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of 
David, hath overcome to open the book 
and the seven seals thereof. And I saw 
in the midst of the throne and of the four 
living creatures,' and in the midst of the 
elders, a Lamb standing, as though it 
had been slain, having seven horns, and 
seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits 
of God, sent forth into all the earth. And 
He came, and He taketh it out of the 
right hand of Him that sat on the throne. 
And when He had taken the book, the 
four living creatures and the four and 
twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, 
having each one a harp, and golden bowls 
full of incense, which are the prayers of 
112 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 



the saints. And they sing a new song, 
saying, Worthy art Thou to take the 
book and to open the seals thereof: for 
Thou wast slain and didst purchase unto 
God with Thy blood men of every tribe, 
and tongue, and people, and nation, and 
madest them to be unto our God a king- 
dom and priests; and they reign upon 
the earth. And I saw, and I heard a 
voice of many angels round about the 
throne and the living creatures and the 
elders; and the number of them was ten 
thousand times ten thousand, and thou- 
sands of thousands; saying with a great 
voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive the power, and riches, 
and wisdom, and might, and honor, and 
glory, and blessing. And every created 
thing which is in heaven, and on the 
earth, and under the earth, and on the 
sea, and all things that are in them, heard 
8 113 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

I, saying, Unto Him that sitteth on the 
throne and unto the Lamb be the bless- 
ing, and the honor, and the glory, and the 
dominion, for ever and ever. And the 
four living creatures said, Amen. And 
the elders fell down and worshiped." 

You recall that the Seer placed the 
vision of the Glorified Christ at the be- 
ginning of the previous section, in fact 
at the beginning of his Book as a whole. 
So now he starts in with a vision of the 
throne in heaven. Not until he had felt 
the power of that throne were the seals 
opened. 

The Seer says to his readers in this 
section, which gets its full meaning only 
in the light of what precedes: "You 
have looked at the Church in the world. 
You have seen it separate, weak, dis- 
heartened, invaded by the world, opposed 
by the world, yet sustained by Him from 
114 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 

whose eyes nothing is hidden, whose feet 
are brass, whose word is a two-edged 
sword — a company of men and women 
sustained upon hidden manna, kept of 
the Lord. But you need to get a new 
point of view — to see the Church in its 
conflict with sin from the eternal point 
of view." So he opens a door in heaven 
through which he gazes, through which 
he called upon the Churches of Asia to 
gaze, through which the Church of all 
ages should gaze. 

What a wonderful vision is this of 
the throne set in heaven! I must not 
linger upon it, but it is full of beauty 
and majesty, one of the most sublime 
pictures of all time, every detail carrying 
its meaning. The thing itself is a blaze 
of jasper light, clear as crystal, a light to 
which no mortal may approach unto. 
The Seer is careful to make this clear, 
115 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

for he was a Jew, with a Jew's sense of 
awe. The Seer's position is important: 
he stands at the door of heaven, a glassy 
sea stretching away from him to the 
throne, adding glory to the scene, but 
also showing us God afar — and unap- 
proachable. The Sardius, glowing red, 
reminds us again that our God is a con- 
suming fire; the emerald rainbow arch- 
ing above the jasper splendor suggests 
that the eternal justice is full of mercy; 
the burning torches in front of the throne 
speak of the wisdom of the Most High. 
About the throne the four and twenty 
elders on separate thrones, crowned and 
robed, patriarchs and apostles in glorious 
company, symbolize that the Churches of 
the Old and New Covenant are one, while 
the living creatures in the midst of the 
throne speak of the whole creation; and 
as we listen to the ascriptions of praise 
116 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 

ascending from the heavenly hosts we see 
that we are in the presence of the Living 
God, Maker of heaven and earth. 

"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive 
glory and honor and power; for Thou 
hast created all things, and for Thy 
pleasure they are and were created." 

But the fullness of the meaning of 
this vision can not be grasped until we 
see the Lamb in the midst of the throne: 
"And I saw in the midst of the throne 
and of the four living creatures, and in 
the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, 
as though it had been slain, having seven 
horns, and seven eyes, which are the 
seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all 
the earth." 

This Lamb is a Lion — His horns and 
eyes indicate fullness of power and wis- 
dom; that He is slain reminds us of 
Calvary. 

117 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

It is worthy of note that while the 
Seer stands at the door, remote from the 
throne, he draws near as the seals are 
opened, for by Christ we all draw nigh 
to God; that is, in the Slain Lamb in 
the midst of the throne we have the 
completion of the idea of God, the reve- 
lation in the Son. 

Now, what is the meaning of this 
throne set in heaven, blazing with light, 
in the midst of which is the Lamb Slain? 
First of all, this: The Lord God Omnipo- 
tent reigneth. His throne stands. Right- 
eousness and wisdom are over all, and 
He is worthy of all worship. That was 
a good thing for the Seer to see and 
realize — a good thing for the Churches 
of Asia to come to know and for the 
Church in all ages to learn. 

We should bear in mind how difficult 
it is at best for man to keep his faith, 
118 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 

that there is an even justice in the world, 
and that the evil devices of men must 
ever fail, however cunningly they may 
be conceived and carried forward. If 
this is so under fairly normal conditions, 
we can imagine how the hearts of men 
failed them in the bloody days in which 
the Seer lived. But we are not left to 
our fancy on this score. Throughout 
the Book we hear the sobbing of the 
Churches. Again and again we see that 
the Church is fainting. The sword of 
Caesar has struck terror to the heart of 
every one. Some of them have gone 
back and some have compromised, as at 
Thyatira. All are smitten with paralysis. 
The Seer realizes this. He assures them 
that he is a fellow-sufferer. He does not 
wonder that they cry out, "How long, O 
Lord, how long!" He himself wept when 
he thought the Book of Destiny was to 
119 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

remain sealed, i. e., the outcome of the 
struggle was not to be made manifest. 
One of his prime purposes is to give the 
Church grounds for hope. 

And this he does by helping them to 
see God high and lifted up, invincible in 
His righteousness. It may seem to the 
Church that the Monster from the Abyss 
alone has power; but it is made increas- 
ingly clear as the seals are opened in the 
blazing glory of the throne that the 
Monster and his minions have their 
freedom in vain. The Lord God, the 
Almighty, holds His power and reigns 
(11:17), and His purpose shall be ac- 
complished (10:7). And all this the 
saints on earth as well as the redeemed 
in heaven come to see. 

God's throne stands invincible in 
righteousness. His purpose in His people 
is not to be defeated. This one aspect 
120 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 



of the revelation of this section is seen 
in the vision of the throne and in various 
passages of this section which, on the one 
hand, gather their meaning from the 
glory of the throne and, on the other 
hand, enable us better to see, as it were, 
its blazing light. Ponder patiently the 
setting and symbolism of the scene 
which reveals the martyrs beneath the 
altar, waiting but not forgotten; the 
white-robed throng before the throne; 
the vision of the fountains of waters; 
the Lamb who is also the Good Shepherd 
leading forth His flock to the green 
pastures and the place of springs; the 
prayers ascending as sweet incense to 
God; and finally, the outburst of the 
song of triumph. 

This is one meaning of the throne 
vision. But it has a deeper meaning. 
In the midst of the throne is a Slain 
121 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Lamb. What does that mean? I do not 
see how we can miss the meaning of the 
symbol of the Slain Lamb in the throne. 
Does it not mean that God is like Christ? 
He is both the Creative Spirit and the 
Redemptive Grace. 

Here we have that great truth cen- 
tral to the Johannine teaching, central to 
all Christian teaching — God is Love. 
Back of all things, under all things, hold- 
ing all things in its bosom, is the love of 
our Heavenly Father. It is here pro- 
claimed in gorgeous imagery. It was an 
audacious thing for the Seer to place the 
Lamb in the midst of the throne; only 
let us keep in mind that he did no such 
thing. What he did was to see the Lamb 
in the midst of the throne. He pro- 
claims more than a Righteous God; he 
proclaims a God of Righteousness work- 
ing out His purposes through His people. 
U2 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 



Judaism held to a similar conception. 
But the Seer has eliminated all racial 
barriers in his thought of the people. He 
has done more. He has made it clear for 
all time that the righteousness of God 
prevails in His purposes because at heart 
it is the sacrificial Love, the Love that 
comes not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister. Here we are at the heart of 
the vision of the throne. The Seer stands 
off in awe as he sees God high and lifted 
up; but he draws nigh as tremblingly 
he looks up and beholds in the midst of 
the throne Him whom the world pierced 
on Calvary. We must not miss the sig- 
nificance of the changed position of the 
Seer as he draws nigh the throne, for 
therein is revealed the deep Christian 
message of the whole Book. Only in the 
light of the throne of Eternal Love have 
we a right to gaze upon the panorama of 
123 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

the opening seals, for God's purposes in 
judgment are by no means vindictive, but 
redemptive — redemptive in purpose al- 
ways; frustrated again and again by in- 
dividual men and women and thus de- 
layed, but not frustrated for the race as 
such, for the Love which gave to man in 
the beginning an earthly paradise will 
strive with him until he shall be brought 
back, as the Book shows, to the Tree of 
Life and to the banks of the River of the 
Water of Life. 3 

Thus the Seer enables his readers in 
this section to look at their struggle with 
sin in the light of eternity, and helps 
them to see that, whatever may be the 
seeming, under all things is an invincible 
Righteousness conquering by the gentle 
power of Love. Thus the Book is not a 
book of doom. God does not destroy 

3 22: 2. 

124 



The Book and the God of Holy Love. 



the earth, but those who would destroy 
the earth (11:18) — Christianity is the 
religion of the new earth, of the new 
humanity, of regeneration, for all things 
are to be made new. Above the terrible 
trumpets of the angels of the Woes we 
hear the Cherubic Chorus of victory, 
and see that mightier than the malignant 
self-will of man is the good-will of God 
who is the Holy Love. 

I do not say that this is all these 
wonderful chapters reveal, but I do not 
hesitate to say that this is the most 
wonderful disclosure contained therein, 
for the Glory of God shining in the face 
of Jesus Christ is the Light of life for all 
mankind, and will ever be. 



125 



THE BOOK AND THE BEAST. 



J^ENDER unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and 
unto God the things that are God's.— Matt. 22: 21. 

In the case of Polycarp at Smyrna in the year 155 it was 
a question of the "Lord" formula. "What is the harm in 
saying 'lord Caesar?'" the Irenarch Herod and his father 
Nicetes asked the saint seductively. The scene enacted on 
17 July 180 at Carthage before the judgment-seat of Pro- 
consul P. Vigellius Saturainus stands out even more plainly. 
The Roman official commands the Christian Speratus of Scili 
in Armidia: "Swear by the genius of our lord the emperor!" 
And the Christian answers: "I know no imperium of this 
world, ... I know my Lord, the King of kings and Em- 
peror of all nations." — Deissmann, "Light from the Ancient 
East," p. 360, 



THE BOOK AND THE BEAST. 



We now come upon a new prophecy. 
We are made aware of this by, among 
other things, a change of atmosphere 
and a change in symbolism. We have 
been looking through an open door upon 
a world of light and peace. We now 
turn to more earthly scenes and begin to 
read about the Great Red Dragon, the 
Beast, and Babylon. How do we explain 
this change of color, of climate, of sky? 
Is this another book? Are we suddenly 
in the company of another prophet? 

Not at all. In chapters twelve to 
twenty the Seer makes a new survey of 
the Kingdom of God in the world. He 
shifts his point of view. 

In chapters one to three he is opening 
9 129 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

the eyes of his fellow-Christians to the 
Divine Presence in the world. Under 
beautiful imagery he is speaking to them 
of the sustaining grace of the friendship 
of Christ. He there points out the 
springs by the way and the hidden manna. 
He does this because they have need of 
such help. In chapters four to eleven he 
opens for them a door looking in upon 
the heavenly world that they may see 
the Light, which no man can approach 
unto, that they may hear cherubic cho- 
ruses. And he does this because they had 
need of seeing their lives, their toil and 
travail, for the Kingdom under the aspect 
of eternity. He there permits them to 
witness the unsealing of the seven-sealed 
book that they may better understand 
the divine character and the divine 
purpose. 

In the chapters which we shall now 
130 



The Book and the Beast. 

try to read he gives them a close-range 
view of the Beast, that they may see his 
malignity, and especially that they may 
see the futility of that malignity. 

We need to guard ourselves against 
one subtle illusion at the very beginning 
of this reading. Naturally enough, we 
shall feel that we are going forward. In 
the twentieth chapter we ought to be 
farther along than in the eleventh. Well, 
we do go forward in this Book. Only 
let us keep in mind that the time sequence 
here is of little consequence. We do go 
forward, but not so much in time as into 
a deeper understanding of the ultimate 
and inevitable issue of God's Kingdom 
in the world. All interpreters have noted 
the resemblance between the judgments 
described under the symbolism of the 
trumpets and that found in this section 
of the Book under the symbolism of the 
131 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

golden bowls. There is a real resem- 
blance. There is, as some interpreters 
have insisted, a recapitulation, for, as 
has just been said, the Seer in these 
chapters twelve to twenty is making a 
resurvey of the Kingdom. He is view- 
ing the Kingdom again and from a new 
angle. It will be profitable to trace the 
outlines of this prophecy before we try 
to determine its deeper meaning and con- 
trolling ideas. 

II. 

This section of the Book extends from 
chapter twelve through chapter twenty. 
But, strictly speaking, the action begins 
at chapter thirteen, where the Seer be- 
holds the Beast rising out of the sea re- 
ceiving his power from the Dragon stand- 
ing on the sandy shore (13:1; 13:4). 
Chapter twelve, then, consisting, as it 
apparently does, of several quotations 
132 



The Book and the Beast. 

from some existing apocalypse possibly- 
well known both to the Seer and to his 
first readers, is introductory to all that 
follows, and makes the telling suggestion 
that the malignity of the Beast so pain- 
fully felt by the Church is inspired by 
the Dragon. Thus chapter twelve, with 
its silhouettes of the Dragon, gives tone 
to all that follows just as in the previous 
section the Glory of the Throne falls over 
all the succeeding visions. The explana- 
tion of those scholars who look upon this 
chapter as a group of quotations adapted 
to the Seer's uses seems to cover not 
only such facts as those in verses 10-12 
and 17, but accounts for the different 
color and general conception of this 
Scripture. Verses 1-6 contain two pic- 
tures, one of the Dragon and the other 
of the Woman or Church thrown, as it 
were, upon the screen of the sky (for "in 
133 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

heaven," verse 1, is not to be taken as 
meaning within heaven as in chapter 
four; see verse 5); and verses 7-17 give 
an account in descriptive, not pictorial, 
form of the casting forth of the Dragon 
from heaven and his consequent bitter 
enmity towards the Church which lies 
within the heavenly purpose and is dear 
to the heavenly hosts and to the Lord 
of the heavenly hosts. 

The Dragon is not the subject of this 
section, yet he has much to do with this 
section and with this Book. Spiritual 
antagonism is a recognized fact. All 
goodness is constantly menaced. That 
we all know. The Seer, and the Scrip- 
tures throughout, personalize this an- 
tagonism. The opposition to the King- 
dom is embodied in the Dragon, that Old 
Serpent, Apollyon, the Devil. In the 
shadowy background he stands. Subtly 
134 



The Book and the Beast. 

but persistently he exerts his influence. 
It is so in these chapters. They have to 
do with the Beast. But the Beast gets 
his authority from the Dragon. By an 
unfailing artistic instinct the Seer sug- 
gests this at the beginning of his prophecy, 
and we feel the Evil Presence everywhere. 
It is necessary for us to see the Dragon 
in order to understand the Beast. So 
there he is, limned against the sky in 
strange, weird colors on that canvas 
named the twelfth chapter. 

"And I saw a Beast coming up out 
of the sea." And as we read the words 
we can see him in the gathering shadows 
of the evening, himself a Darker Shadow, 
slimy and dripping, huge, unearthly, 
combining all conceivable beastliness in 
himself, lithe and leopard-like for all his 
ponderousness, with feet like a bear and 
the mouth of a lion, his head covered 
135 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

with diademed horns! "The Beast" is 
the subject of this section. (Referred to 
14:9, 11; 15:2; 16:2, 10, 13; 17:3; 
19:19, 20; 20:4, 10.) 

And this Beast is no ordinary beast, 
as I have said. As we shall see, I hope, 
he represents the Roman Empire; but, 
however that may be, he is the minion 
of the Dragon, from whom he receives 
his authority and power. He also as- 
sumes the prerogatives of Deity, and 
without weariness tramples upon the 
Church. 

This Beast rising out of the sea is 
aided by a second Beast, rising out of the 
land, a Beast unlike the first, lamb -like 
in appearance, yet really a serpent at 
heart, and referred to in later portions 
of this section as the false prophet (16: 13; 
19:20; 20: 10), for it is his business to 
make the earth and them that dwell 
136 



The Book and the Beast. 

therein to worship the First Beast. And 
to do this, as we read on we learn, he 
works signs and wonders, making even 
the image of the Beast to breathe and 
speak. 1 

We shall learn that this false prophet 
represents the provincial priests set for 
the promotion of the worship of the 
Roman emperors. 

But, whatever we think of these 
features in this section of the Book, we 
have it made perfectly clear to us that 
neither the Beast from the Sea nor the 
Beast from the Land wanders aimlessly 
or blunderingly. They are guided by a 
demonish instinct, and they are tor- 
mentors of both "small and great, rich 
and poor, free and bond," making them 
subject to the rule of the Beast and forc- 
ing them to receive his mark if they are 

1 13: 15. 

137 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

to live, buy, or sell upon the earth. 2 The 
thirteenth chapter can be understood only in 
the light of chapters two and three, where we 
hear of the death of Antipas, the suffering 
of Christians, the flashing of C&sar's sword. 

The Seer thus enables the Church to 
see that he appreciates its strait. He says 
as much in chapters two and three. He 
himself has felt the power of the Beast. 
And in this prophecy he confronts the 
Beast and unmasks him and makes ap- 
parent both his inspiration and pre- 
sumption; and he does this deliberately 
because he is to make clear to the Church 
the futility of the raging of the Beast 
against God and His anointed. 

It is well to note that the Seer does 
not give the visions of the Beast until he 
has enabled the Church to look upon 
the Throne in Heaven. He first helps 

2 13: 17. 

138 



The Book and the Beast. 

his readers to see that God's righteous- 
ness is invincible because it is the ex- 
pression of Holy Love, a love that never 
faileth. Then they are ready to look 
upon the Beast at close range. 

Not only so; he will not let the 
Church look too long at the slimy Beast. 
In chapter fourteen we have the vision 
of the blessed ones who have refused the 
mark of the Beast. What a glorious 
company they are! 

Then comes the daring word! They 
are to overcome — the followers of Christ! 
An angel flying in mid-heaven proclaims 
the Eternal Gospel and calls upon every 
nation and tongue to fear God and not 
man, not the Beast, for the hour of judg- 
ment has come. 

A second angel follows, announcing 
the impending doom of Babylon, the 
empire of the Beast. 

139 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



A third angel follows the second, say- 
ing, "If any man worshipeth the Beast 
and his image, and receiveth the mark 
on his forehead, or upon his hand, he 
also shall drink of the wine of the wrath 
of God." 

These three angels are followed by 
the vision of the Harvester who hurls 
his sickle to the earth and reaps it at the 
word of the angel who comes out of the 
temple in heaven. A second angel comes 
forth from the temple carrying a sharp 
sickle; and still another coming out from 
the altar cries, "Send forth thy sharp 
sickle and gather the clusters of the 
vine of the earth, for the grapes are fully 
ripe." 

What a splendid angelic succession 
is this! How glorious these denizens of 
the sky! All of them shining, pure, god- 
like against the foulness of the Beast! 
140 



The Book and the Beast. 

Truly, they that are with us are more 
than they that be against us ! The heav- 
ens are full of shining hosts if we but had 
eyes to see! Yet the Seer is not done. 
Indeed, he has just begun. Immediately 
there stand before us, majestic, awful, 
panoplied in light, seven gigantic angels 
holding golden bowls full of the Wrath 
of God. It is an overwhelming spectacle, 
and as we gaze we see the vision of a 
multitude no man can number standing 
on, as it were, a sea of glass. 

The dominion of the Beast is at an 
end. The seven last plagues are about 
to visit the earth. The heavenly chorus 
has ceased its song. There is silence 
everywhere. The Seer does not say so, 
but the reader feels that it is so. 

After an interval the Seer looks again, 
and, behold, seven angels clothed in pure 
and white linen, girded about their 
141 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

breasts with golden girdles, come out of 
the temple in heaven and receive from 
one of the four living creatures seven 
golden bowls, full of the Wrath of God! 
God's judgments hurry forward. The 
bowls are poured forth upon the earth, 
the sea, the springs of water, the sun, 
the empire of the Beast. A comparison of 
15: 5-7 and 16: 18 with 11: 19 and 4: 6-11 
will show how the several parts of the 
Book are related and how they help the 
interpreter to its meaning. 

The judgment on the Empire of the 
Beast, which represents one form of the 
Dominion of the Dragon, centers in the 
destruction of the city of Babylon, which 
is the heart and nerve-center of the 
empire and which is symbolized under 
the figure of a Woman on a Scarlet Beast; 
and she is represented as drunk on the 
blood of the martyrs of Jesus. What 
142 



The Book and the Beast. 

the Seer sees is described in chapters 
seventeen and eighteen. The fall of 
Babylon is followed by the Hallelujah 
Chorus. And this, in turn, by the vision 
of the Conquering Christ riding forth on 
a white horse. And this by the vision 
of the angel in the sun announcing the 
Supper of God. 

Thus this cycle ends with the over- 
throw of the Beast. Strictly speaking, I 
think chapter twenty must be taken as 
part of this cycle, for not until then do 
we have the overthrow of the Dragon 
and the vision of the White Throne. 

To catch the sublime outlook of the 
Seer it is only necessary to trace this 
cycle in merest outline — to pass from the 
vision of the Dragon to the vision of the 
Beast from the Sea to the vision of the 
Beast from the Land, through the suc- 
cession of angels to the vision of the 
143 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

falling city of Babylon, to the vision of 
the chorus, to the vision of the conquer- 
ing Christ, to the vision of the Angel 
and the Dragon, until at last we come to 
the vision of the Great White Throne. 
There are three steps to the climax of this 
cycle. The first is seen at the chorus, 
the second at the conquering Christ, the 
last at the Great White Throne. 

III. 

I have said that the Beast represents 
the Roman Empire and the second Beast, 
the False Prophet, the priesthood inter- 
ested in the furtherance of the imperial 
cult. Of course, other interpretations 
have been given. 

Suppose we state the case hypothet- 
ically. Let us try to reconstruct in a 
few of its features the spirit and condi- 
tion of the age in which the Seer lived. 
144 



The Book and the Beast. 

Perchance without much difficulty we 
shall find light on this entire section of 
the Book. 

We know now, thanks to a whole 
company of laborious scholars, that the 
Church in a very few decades after the 
ascension of our Lord came face to face 
with the Roman Empire as an antago- 
nistic force. We know that that empire 
was earthly, material, brutal. It had 
nothing in common with the spirit of the 
Kingdom of God. We know of the terri- 
ble persecutions through which the Chris- 
tians passed. We know how towering 
were the ambitions of the emperors. We 
know how they arrogated to themselves 
divine powers. We know that it was 
necessary for the Roman citizens to 
acknowledge the divinity of these Caesars 
or stand stamped as disloyal, as traitors. 

Many documents have been unearthed 
to 145 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

to show how necessary it was to have 
one's devotion to the empire certified. 
We know that temples were built for 
the worship of the emperors. We know, 
further, that these emperors loved the 
empire simply for what it could yield to 
them. W T e know that Nero, who had 
passed out of life by a violent death, was 
expected to come back and resume his 
rule in Rome. This superstition was 
widespread and wild. We know, on the 
other hand, that the converts to Chris- 
tianity were often greatly embarrassed in 
their loyalty to Christ both because of 
social and commercial ties. We know 
that some of them lapsed, that all of them 
were watched, and that many of them 
died because of their refusal to make 
any kind of a compromise. 

These are a few of the conditions that 
we know existed. 

146 



The Book and the Beast. 

Now, as we read the chapters twelve 
to twenty of the Book in the light of 
these facts, we see that we have an 
actual historical situation reflected there 
as certainly as we have in chapters two 
and three. If any one has any doubt 
of this in the broad, I urge him to read 
such books as Ramsay's and Deissmann's 
in reconstruction of that time, or such a 
commentary as Swete's on Revelation, 
and especially his chapter on "Anti- 
Christ in Asia Minor." 

But turn now to chapter seventeen. 
There we have Babylon described as a 
drunken woman sitting upon a scarlet- 
colored beast having seven heads and 
ten horns (17:3). A horrible vision, so 
repulsive, so hideous that the Seer tells 
us he was filled with wonder by it. The 
angel-guide explains the mystery of the 
Beast to him in verses 7-18. 

147 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

I think we shall understand his ex- 
planation more readily if we keep in 
mind what must have been clear to his 
first readers, that sometimes the Seer 
uses the symbol of the Beast (i. e., the 
first Beast) to represent the Roman 
Empire as a whole (13: 1), sometimes to 
represent the city of Rome (17:9), and 
at other times to indicate a single em- 
peror who embodied fully the spirit of 
the Beast (17:8; 13:14; 13:17; 13:18). 
If this emperor was Nero, then we have 
a further clearing of difficulties, for, as 
has just been said, after Nero's death it 
was expected that he would appear again 
and ascend the Roman throne. The 
fear of his return was widespread. 

This is the angel's explanation of the 
mystery of the scarlet-covered beast 
(17: 9). The seven heads are mountains. 
The suggestion of Rome is needed to guide 
148 



The Book and the Beast. 

the reader (17: 9); but at once the Seer 
adds, "And they are seven kings" (17: 
10). The seven heads are seven kings. 
(See 13: 1.) "Five are fallen, the one is, 
the other is yet to come; and when he 
cometh he must continue a little while." 
The Seer writes thus in the time of the 
sixth emperor. If we turn back to 13: 3 
we read, "And I saw one of his heads as 
though it had been smitten to death; 
and his death-stroke was healed; and 
the whole earth wondered after the 
beast." The tradition that Nero was 
alive again would explain this text, and 
also 17: 8: "The beast that thou sawest 
was, and is not and is about to come up 
out of the abyss, and to go into perdi- 
tion." Also this: "And the beast that 
was, and is not is himself also an eighth, 
and is of the seven" (i. e., he has reigned 
as one of the seven). 

149 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

The Seer evidently feels that the dis- 
cerning reader will not be confused by his 
speaking of the empire as the Beast and 
again of a given emperor as the Beast, 
for the emperor was the empire; and, as 
he indicates, they had little love for Rome 
save as Rome gave them opportunity to 
satiate their lust for power (17: 16). 

Possibly the ten horns refer to con- 
temporary or to future rulers who receive 
their authority from Rome (17:12). I 
think that the Seer's explanation here 
must be referred back to the ten horns 
in 13:1. 

If, then, the Beast symbolizes the 
Roman Empire as embodied in the em- 
peror we have an understanding of 13: 
5-10 and also 13: 16-18. 

If, now, we look more closely at what 
is said of Rome under the symbols of 
150 



The Book and the Beast, 

Babylon and the Woman on the Scarlet- 
colored Beast, we get further light. 

It was a fine insight that enabled the 
Seer to speak of Rome as a harlot with 
whom the kings of the earth have com- 
mitted fornication. And his picture of 
her is consistent and detailed. She 
is gaudily dressed, decked with costly 
jewels, is drunken but continues to drink 
out of a full beaker, until at last she is 
left naked and desolate. (17:2-6; 17: 
15-16.) This woman is identified with 
Babylon (18:2-7). 

From verse 8 on we have a closer view 
of Babylon, and it is without doubt the 
empire as centered in the city of Rome 
the Seer has described to him in the hour 
of its doom. 

The passage must be read to be ap- 
preciated. 

151 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



IV. 

If I am right in identifying the em- 
pire of the Beast with the Roman Empire, 
and modern scholars seem pretty well 
agreed on this point, then we should 
note that, while in the letters the Seer 
tries to fasten the attention of his readers 
not upon the sword of Caesar but upon 
the two-edged sword of Christ, not upon 
its troubles but upon the sufficiency of 
their Lord, here he is facing fearlessly 
the antagonistic forces, the Beast in all 
his malignity. The Booh has moved for- 
ward. And the Seer feels that it can be 
made perfectly clear to his readers that 
neither the Empire of the Beast nor the 
Dominion of the Dragon can prevail 
against the Kingdom of Christ. And 
history makes clear, as Bishop Westcott 
has indicated, that the history of the 
Roman Empire from the beginning of 
152 



The Book and the Beast. 



the Christian Epoch was a decline and 
fall, while the Christian Kingdom was a 
victorious progress. 3 We can see this 
now. But the Seer wanted his fellow- 
Christians to feel that the rage of the 
Beast was in vain. And as the reader of 
this section climbs step by step to the 
vision of the White Throne he, too, can 
not but feel that this is so. 

But this section must stand for more 
than this. It is essentially an uncom- 
promising protest against any compro- 
mise on the part of Christians with the 
imperial cult. The same fierce demand 
for fidelity to the Lord is made through- 
out these chapters as in the letters to 
the Churches (chapters two and three). 
We must not miss this point. The Beast 
demands recognition on pain of death; 
but immediately the Seer ushers in one 

8 "The Epistles of John," pp. 250-282. 

153 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

angel after another who protests against 
any surrender, on the part of the Chris- 
tians, any recognition of Caesar as Christ, 
or Lord. And in these large massings of 
texts we see reflected the struggle between 
the empire and the Kingdom. 

V. 

The first readers of the Book had a 
vast advantage over the present-day 
readers of the Book. They knew the 
conditions in which they lived, of which 
the Seer writes. We have to learn those 
conditions to reconstruct the life of that 
time. The average reader of Revelation 
is thus at a very remarkable disad- 
vantage, being wholly unacquainted with 
the historical setting of the Book, and 
easily becomes lost in its multiplied sym- 
bols or at least must give no little time 
and thought to an understanding of these 
154 



The Book and the Beast. 



things. This is exceedingly unfortunate 
for the Seer also. He does not easily 
have his way with us. He labors at a dis- 
advantage. For instance, the lessons of 
these chapters, twelve to twenty, are 
simple enough once we master the lan- 
guage in which they have been written. 
But we must learn the language first. 
Hence we have given no little time to 
reading meanings that ought to be felt 
rather than simply deciphered. The 
simple message of the Seer was level to 
the humblest intelligence. He was not 
speaking esoterically or for a favored 
few, but to toilers and bondmen. He 
was saying to them simply that he knew 
how hard-pressed they were. He knew 
how persistent Rome was. He knew, 
also, that the persecutions through which 
they were passing were hell-born. Yet 
There Must Be No Compromise. The 
155 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Nicolaitans and all their kith and kin 
were traitors to the Lord. Besides, the 
enemies of Christ shall not prevail. 

Of course, in this section of the Book 
the Seer touches upon one of the pro- 
found mysteries, spiritual antagonism. 
I do not think we are justified in think- 
ing that the Seer thought of this as ex- 
hausting itself in the bloody efforts of 
Rome. In fact he makes it perfectly 
clear that long after the Beast had been 
cast into the Lake of Fire the Dragon 
continued on in his devilish resistance 
to the Divine Will. This spiritual an- 
tagonism is a mysterious fact. But we 
are all familiar with it. The good is 
everywhere menaced. As Paul says, we 
fight not simply against flesh and blood, 
but against principalities and powers of 
darkness. 

I say all of this is simple enough. 
156 



The Book and the Beast. 



But the pity is that we are not left free 
to feel the eloquence, the splendor of 
the Seer's presentation of his message. 
It is too bad if in our effort to determine 
just what personage in history is indi- 
cated by the Beast we fail to see the 
awful sliminess, the monstrous repulsive- 
ness of evil. It is certainly reason for 
deepest regret if we do not feel, as we 
gaze on the Seer's sublime pictures, the 
wonderful majesty and the glory of 
righteousness, the beauty of holiness — if 
we do not see everywhere the splendor 
of the Divine Presence. 

We simply miss the spiritual signifi- 
cance of the Book if we do not sit quietly 
and reverently before the sublime visions 
given therein. There is no comment that 
does not somehow spoil their beauty or 
turn them into prose. 

For, if we will take our stand with 
157 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

the Seer in the gathering shadows of the 
evening on some rocky promontory of 
Patmos after the hard day in the quar- 
ries, we shall not simply see the Beast 
rising out of the sea. That we shall see. 
But we shall see much more. We shall 
see the multitude of the redeemed who 
have gained the victory over the Beast 
clothed in white and crowned. We shall 
see Babylon, drunken and beastly and 
insolent, falling like a stone cast into the 
sea by an angel standing on the battle- 
ments of heaven. But we shall see more. 
We shall see the great multitude in heaven 
singing songs of victory and rejoicing in 
the knowledge that "the Lord our God 
the Almighty reigneth." We shall see 
Him whose eyes are a flame of fire, upon 
whose head are many diadems, whose 
garments are sprinkled with blood, whose 
name is the Word of God, who rules the 
158 



The Book and the Beast. 



nations with a rod of iron, who hath in- 
scribed on His shield and His girdle, 
"King of kings and Lord of lords." We 
shall see the angel standing in the sun, 
the soul in the frame of the material. 
We shall see above the smoke of the Pit, 
above the strife of the Earth, the White 
Throne, a Throne without a stain, upon 
which in the sufficiency of His power 
sits the Holy Love, God, our Father, 
whose glory hath shone for all of us in 
the face of Jesus Christ. 

And if the increasing splendor of 
these visions does not break upon us, 
we have not read the Book understand- 
ingly, for the faith the Seer delivers to 
the saints is, that God reigneth and He 
shall prevail. 



159 



THE BOOK AND THE RE- 
TURNING CHRIST. 



11 



rpHE entire prophecy of the Apocalypse rests upon the 
fundamental thought of the personal return of the Lord. 
As the proper theme of the entire book, this prophetic funda- 
mental thought is explicitly announced from the beginning; 
and where in the epilogue the deepest relation of the entire 
revelation is once more summarily presented, there it is re- 
peated in the words, "I come quickly," as also, then, on the 
other hand, the entire answer of all believers to the divine 
revelation given in the prophetical book is compressed into 
one word expressing the longing for the Lord's return: 
" Come." — Dusterdieck, "Revelation." 

No greater need presses upon the Church of to-day than 
that of gaining a realizing scene of the real and abiding 
presence of the living Lord as a powerful ally whom nothing 
can vanquish. A distant Christ will give a discouraged 
Church; a dead Christ will give a dead Church. A Christ 
who is present will give a Church bounding with hope; a 
Christ who is living will give a Church pulsating with life; 
a Christ who is supreme in the spiritual realm, and who is 
operating the spiritual forces at His command for the es- 
tablishment of His Kingdom on earth, will give a Church 
radiant with hope concerning the future of the world. — 
Campbell, " The Presence." 



THE BOOK AND THE RE- 
TURNING CHRIST. 

The Kingdom of God in the thought 
of the Old Testament prophets was a 
conception that stood for the complete 
sovereignty of God over all life, and yet 
with even the greatest of them it was 
never quite freed from national and 
racial restrictions. In the thought of 
Christ it was universalized and spir- 
itualized, and has come eventually to 
mean a society made up of men and 
women living in the power of a simple 
but mighty faith in God, with a spirit 
of brotherliness towards each other. 
Neither racial nor national barriers have 
any place in it. The pattern of this* 
163 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Kingdom lies clear in the Sermon on the 
Mount and in the Parables of Christ. 

Now, as we seek to determine what 
the Book has to say about this idea of 
the Kingdom, I think we shall do well to 
put a specific question to our minds : Does 
the Book of Revelation hold the premil- 
lennial conception of the Kingdom of God? 

What do we mean by the premillen- 
nial conception of the Kingdom? 

Premillennialism takes on a variety 
of forms. It varies from the more spir- 
itualized type, which emphasizes simply 
the imminence of Christ's return to the 
earth, to the crasser and more material- 
istic type which represents the nth degree 
of literalism. We need not be concerned 
to dwell upon the crudities of interpre- 
tation that belong to a decadent Judaism. STi 4 $ 
Let us rather try to determine whether 
or not the cardinal characteristics com- 
164 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

mon to all premillennialism are in har- 
mony with the ruling ideas of Chris- 
tianity and of the Book. 

First, Premillennialism thinks of the 
Kingdom of God not as come, but as to 
come in the future. It does not belong 
to this seon or age. 

Second, The Kingdom is to come not 
by gradual progress from achievement to 
achievement, but after a great crisis, when 
the heavens and earth shall be shaken by 
disaster and revolution, and the descent 
of Christ. 

Third, the Church is to witness for 
Christ throughout the world, to witness 
that men may come to know the gospel 
claims, not that they may accept them. 
Premillennialism scoffs at the thought of 
Christianizing the world, or the thought of 
a Christian civilization, and has no place 
for the question, "What would Jesus do?" 
165 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Fourth, Premillennialism teaches that 
things will go from bad to worse in the 
world until the blackness of darkness shall 
come upon all humankind. You can see 
the night shadows gathering now, for we 
live in a growing dusk. 

Fifth, Premillennialism teaches that 
Christ will come in bodily presence at 
the hour of supreme crisis (which may be 
now — who can say?), and He will rescue 
the righteous and set up His Kingdom 
upon the earth, thus ushering in the 
Millennium — which may be thought of 
as a literal one thousand years, or as an 
indefinite period of time, for even these 
literalists are not utterly lacking in 
imagination in a small way. 

Let us look a little more closely at 
these positions. 

"The Kingdom is future." Jesus 
said, "Lo, the Kingdom is in your midst" 
166 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

or "the Kingdom is within you." Paul 
insisted that the Kingdom was not meat 
or drink or any materiality, but a per- 
sonal fellowship of man with God. "The 
Kingdom is not meat and drink, but 
righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy 
Ghost." The prevalent New Testament 
teaching is that the Kingdom has come, 
is here, and shall come. 

"The Kingdom is to come by crisis." 
Jesus said the Kingdom is like seed sown 
broadcast by the farmer — ideals, ideas, 
inspirations, leavening life, as leaven 
lifts the measure of meal. The Kingdom 
is like the seed of mustard which, cast 
into the ground, grows to be a great tree 
filling the earth — the point of view of the 
thirteenth chapter of Matthew. Yet all 
progress is by revolution as well as evo- 
lution, by leaps and bounds as well as by 
growth day and night. So when we turn 
167 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



over to the 24th and 25th chapters of 
Matthew we find that his thought is ab- 
sorbed with the catastrophic conception 
of the Kingdom. He is thinking, ap- 
parently, of the collapse of the Jewish 
State, of the stormy centuries of the 
Gentiles, of the consummation of all 
things. It is difficult to say how much 
the future was foreshortened in our 
Lord's vision. Here again we need to re- 
mind ourselves that the time sequence is 
not so important as the moral sequence. 
But what kind of exegesis is it that can 
read the 24th chapter of Matthew only 
by ignoring the 13th. Read together, 
we can see that the consummation of all 
things comes not as a leap from the 
clouds, but as the climactic eventuation 
of causes and forces resident in the heart 
and thought of Christendom. 

Premillennialism teaches that the 
168 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

Church is to witness to the gospel 
throughout the world, not that the world 
may accept the gospel necessarily, but 
that the world may know what the gospel 
claims are. 

Yet this is to overlook all that our 
Lord had to say about life-problems and 
the meaning of His teaching for certain 
conditions. Paul well said that all think- 
ing was to be brought into obedience to 
Christ. His missionary career was a re- 
construction of all life in keeping with 
Christian principles. If this is not so, 
it is difficult to know what to do with 
his great Corinthian letters. Moreover, 
it is hardly likely that all Christian 
preaching has been wide of the mark. 
And the objective of all Christian preach- 
ing has been the recalcitrant human 
will. 

"The world is growing worse, and 
169 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

will continue to do so until the returning 
Christ shall turn the tide." 

How preposterous that sounds to us 
when we think of the life of the multi- 
tudes of slaves in the Gentile world of 
Christ's time as compared with the life 
of the common people to-day; or when 
we think of the free play of Christian 
ideas throughout the world to-day com- 
pared with the sodden condition of 
humanity in Paul's time, both within 
the Roman Empire and without, espe- 
cially without. Yet more important, 
even, than this is the consideration that 
such a philosophy of life adhered to con- 
sistently would have drugged the human 
race these last nineteen hundred years 
into helpless, useless, blighted, idle wait- 
ing instead of releasing it to a healthy 
and rational activity. 

How different Christian history would 
170 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

have been if the premillennial view had 
dominated the thought of the races of 
Christendom. 

Lastly, "Christ will come to rescue 
the world." The Scriptures and the 
creeds always speak of Christ's second 
coming, as He invariably did, evidently, 
as a coming in judgment. All history 
moves to a consummation— tares and 
wheat — and then the harvest. 

Thus the Christian teaching, taken 
as a whole, does not seem to be friendly 
to the premillennial view of the King- 
dom, a view that has been determinating 
and controlling in so much of the inter- 
pretation of the Book of Revelation. 
Some Premillennialists, feeling this diffi- 
culty, have sought to obviate it by hold- 
ing that much of the teaching of Jesus 
(for instance, the Lord's Prayer and the 
parables) has no meaning for the present 
171 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

dispensation. We may not appeal to it. 
It applies to a coming seon! Strange, is 
it not, that the Master so ill-timed His 
words? But shifting will not do. If 
Jesus' teaching was meant for a future 
age rather than the present, then Jesus 
must stand condemned as incapable of 
making Himself understood; and He 
the greatest of teachers. 

No, this will not do. The prevailing 
view of scholars has come to be that the 
eschatological interpretation of Chris- 
tianity, i. e. 9 the attempt to make it a 
chart of the future ages, or "last things," 
can not stand. Christianity does throw 
light upon the destiny of the individual 
and the race, but it does so because it is 
a word of life, speaking of God, and the 
soul, and seeking to help the soul out of 
the Far Country back to the Father's 
House. But when one turns from the 
172 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

bewildering charts and maps and laby- 
rinthine discussions about aeons and dis- 
pensations and literalistic readings of pre- 
millennialism to the Sermon on the 
Mount, the Fourth Gospel, or the Book 
of Acts, it is as when, aroused from some 
tortuous dream of the night, one looks 
out of his window and sees the sky 
flooded with the light of the morning. It 
is a renewal of life and hope and sanity. 
Now, as to the Book of Revelation. I 
have already (see the Introductory Chap- 
ter) pointed out that its real affinity is 
with the Fourth Gospel rather than with 
the apocalypticism of the later Judaism. 
And I again remind you of the significance 
of the Seer's free handling of the apoca- 
lyptic teaching. There is only one expla- 
nation of that: He moves with a greater 
freedom in a roomier conception of the 
Kingdom than the typical apocalyptist. 
173 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Dobschutz in his admirable book on 
the "Esehatology of the Gospels" re- 
views the teaching of Jesus as a whole to 
show that the moral teaching rather than 
that concerning the last things consti- 
tutes the essence of Christianity, and 
does so not simply because the ethical 
teaching bulks much more largely than 
the other, but chiefly because the eschato- 
logical teaching is "transmuted." That 
is, the Kingdom which was conceived by 
the later Judaism as future and external 
is conceived by Jesus as present and in- 
ward, and all the teaching is handled 
freely. Precisely so is it in the case of 
the Seer. The letters to the Churches 
in the second and third chapters show 
that he held to the inward and present, 
i. e., to the spiritual view of the Kingdom. 
I do not believe — I can not lead myself 
to believe — that the Book of Revelation 
174 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

favors the premillennial view of the 
Kingdom any more than the Fourth 

Gospel does. 

If there is any doubt on this score, re- 
examine the teaching of the Book as a 
whole, its conception of Christ as a 
Present and Sufficient Grace, as Savior 
and as Judge. (See the chapter on "The 
Book and Christ.") 

The Seer held that a power equal to 
the need of the world had been released 
by the Cross of Christ, and he was not 
one to make the Cross of no effect. Read 
again those passages dealing with the 
actual situation of the Church and see 
how he thought of the Church as a wit- 
ness to the gospel to the end that the 
whole world might be saved. Take a 
single instance to illustrate his thought 
of the Church. The compromising of 
the members of the Thyatirian Church 
175 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

was terrible to him, as it meant the lapsing 
back of the whole Church into Paganism. 
Does not that show that John looked 
forward to the Christianization of the 
world? Then, too, as shall yet more 
clearly appear, as with his Master, the 
Kingdom to him was both present and 
to come. 

But take a single passage of the 
Book— chapter 20: 1-10. 

"There you have an excellent example 
of the premillennial view of the King- 
dom," the premillennialist asserts. "There 
is a literal dragon, a literal angel, a literal 
chain, a literal pit, a literal Christ. Fol- 
lowing the literal imprisonment of the 
dragon is to come a literal reign of Christ 
upon the earth in bodily presence, dis- 
turbed for a literal time once more by 
this literal dragon, who is finally to be 
literally killed." 

176 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

"Now," says the chiliast, the pre- 
millennialist, the literalist, "how are you 
going to get around such a Scripture as 
this?" 

Let us say at once there is never a 
question of getting around a Scripture if 
we are really interpreting Scripture. The 
question is always one of getting into the 
Scripture, and the relevant question al- 
ways is, What does the Scripture mean? 
Not what might it mean? Nor what may 
it be made to mean? But what ideas did 
it hold for the writer and for the Spirit 
who was inspiring the writer? 

I can conceive the passage as the 
literalist does. I can say that the passage 
teaches that after an interval of time 
Christ shall return in bodily presence to 
the earth, imprison the Devil for a 
season, and later destroy him, meanwhile 
setting up a Kingdom upon the earth. 
12 177 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Yet such an interpretation, clean-cut and 
simple, runs against some difficulties. 

Swete says: "When Doctor Charles 
writes ("Eschatology," p. 439), 'The 
martyrs . . . reign with Christ per- 
sonally on earth for a thousand years 
(20:4-6), with Jerusalem as the center 
of the Kingdom,' he introduces into the 
eschatology of this passage ideas collected 
from Cc. 5: 10, 20: 9, and 21: 10." Even 
so careful a writer as C. Anderson Scott 
says: "This is the only passage in the 
New Testament which clearly sets forth 
a doctrine of the millennium, i. e., of a 
period in which "Christ will reign in 
bodily presence upon earth for a thou- 
sand years.'" But look carefully at 
these Scriptures. 5:10 makes the mar- 
tyrs' chorus refer to the redeemed power 
that has come to them through Christ. 
Even that passage does not speak of them 
178 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 



as returning to earth in bodily presence 
to reign. That Christ is reigning upon 
the earth now is certainly one of the 
Seer's great convictions. 5: 10 says noth- 
ing that requires us to think of the mar- 
tyrs reigning upon the earth as involving 
a return on their part to earth. 20 : 4 
says the martyrs reign with Christ a 
thousand years. Where? Upon the 
earth? Swete says, "But St. John does 
not commit himself to a reign upon the 
earth." He certainly does not in this 
passage, 20: 4. And to go the length of 
saying, as Scott does, that 20 : 4 teaches 
that Christ will reign in bodily presence, 
is to read something into the Scriptures 
not really there. 1 

x That the millennial reign is to be inaugurated by the 
visible coming of Christ and is to proceed as a visible ad- 
ministration of Christ and the risen saints is not said. It is 
a fair question whether it was thought by the revelator. 
Those, therefore, who would make a positive tenet of the 
idea of a future visible reign of Christ upon this earth must 

179 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

If we read on we find that after the 
martyrs reign an indefinite time there 
comes a time of confusion and a time 
when Satan deceives the nations until fire 
falls from heaven and devours the ene- 
mies of the saints. This would seem to 
indicate that the forces destructive of 
evil are still above the earthly level. Not 
the martyrs, not an earthly-placed Christ, 
but fire from heaven does to death Satan 
and his minions. I am reminded of one 
of Charles Brown's comments on the 
Book, "To be literal is to be lost." 

I must not dwell upon the textual dif- 
ficulties of the clean-cut premillennial 
view. 

I find very real embarrassments in 

build upon a very scanty foundation. They have not so 
much of a foundation as one definite expression in a single 
passage of a single Biblical writer, but only what may pos- 
sibly have been the thought of the revelator in penning a 
single passage." — Sheldon, "New Testament Theology" pp. 
169-70. 

180 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

trying to accept this bodily return of 
Christ to reign upon the earth, with His 
capital at Jerusalem. 2 I have stated some 
of them already: The whole conception 
runs counter to the Scriptural teaching 
concerning the Kingdom, its nature and 
progress, the Church and its mission, and 
the purpose of Christ's return. More- 
over, the Incarnation was once, and was 
not a failure. Christ finished His work 
when here in bodily form so far as it 
could be done in the body. It is difficult 
to conceive why He should become re- 
incarnated. I mention these considera- 
tions simply to show that this reading, 
so simple and apparently so final, has 

2 The Old Testament prophecies took into their purview 
the coming of Messiah, i. e., the First Advent. Messiah's 
kingdom was to be for ever and ever. T. M. Thomas, in his 
recent book, "The Coming Presence," says: "The idea of 
Christ's bodily reign on earth is absolutely foreign to the 
thought of Paul." (41, p. 165.) He speaks of this con- 
ception as being opposed "to the whole trend of New Testa- 
ment teaching." 

181 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

both exegetical and philosophical diffi- 
culties apparently insuperable. 

Now, if this interpretation is so un- 
satisfactory, is there not another that 
will be perfectly fair to the text and that, 
nevertheless, yields a conception of the 
consummation of the Kingdom more con- 
sonant with the ethics of Jesus and the 
ruling ideas of Christianity. 

I have no hesitation in giving an af- 
firmative answer, and I suggest that we 
shall see how to conceive the Seer's teach- 
ing concerning the consummation if we 
recall how he speaks of the present ac- 
tivity of Christ. A literal interpretation 
of the Seer's teaching concerning the 
Lord's relation to the Church in Asia 
Minor in his (the Seer's) time will land 
the reader in utter confusion. That is, 
if the way to understand what he says 
about the Church in the world is to take 
182 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

his imagery as symbolical, let us follow 
the same method in trying to understand 
what he has to say about the consumma- 
tion. And let us not forget that the 
Seer, as I have already said, handled all 
the current apocalyptic forms freely, 
much as the Master handled the coin of 
the current speech of His day. 

So if the literalist asks not how we 
are going to get around this Scripture, 
but how are we going to read it, I reply, 
Just as we read the first chapter. Why 
should we treat the Seer's imagery in the 
first chapter as a sublime symbolism 
bodying forth spiritual truth, pictorially 
representing spiritual truth not to explain 
away, but to make the truth yet more 
vividly real, and then treat the twentieth 
chapter in the most literal manner? 
When the Seer says that Jesus was 
present in Asia Minor, we do not think 
183 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

that he means in a bodily presence. Yet 
the Seer so pictures Him. We do not 
think that he meant that Jesus literally 
had brass feet by which He might be 
identified. Nevertheless the Seer was 
insisting upon Christ as really present, 
and he was also insisting (by the brass 
feet) that He is the "Strong Son of 
God." 

How shall we read this twentieth 
chapter? Just as all readers read the 
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chap- 
ters. The interpreters of the Seer have 
varied greatly in their opinions as to 
what the Seer intended the beasts to 
represent. Some have thought he meant 
the pope, others Luther, others modern 
business men, etc. No one, so far as I 
am aware, has ever contended that the 
Seer meant us to believe that he had 
seen literal beasts becrowned and be- 
184 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 



horned stalking the earth and demanding 
to be worshiped by men and women. 

How shall we read this passage? As 
we read that Scripture which speaks of 
Satan's throne in Pergamos, and that 
other passage which speaks of his syna- 
gogue as being in Philadelphia. Of 
course, no one imagines that Satan read 
the Scriptures from week to week to a 
deceived multitude in Philadelphia. At 
least I hope no one believes any such 
thing. And, of course, we ought to read 
the Book consistently, not literally here 
and symbolically there. Moreover, the 
Seer has done as much to give us a clue 

Note. — On Good Friday, 1906, I had the advantage of 
seeing Pergamos under the guidance of Wilhelm Darpfeld. 
Actual inspection of the place suggests that Satan's Throne 
(Rev. 2: 13) can only have been the altar of Zeus. No other 
shrine of the hill city was visible to such a great distance and 
could therefore rank so typically as the representative of 
Satanic heathendom." — Deissmann, "Light from the Ancient 
East" p. 280. 



185 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

to his meaning as we have a right to ask 
him to do, for a writer has reason to ex- 
pect something of his readers. He says, 
"I do not mean a literal dragon — I mean 
that Old Serpent." He is, in other words, 
speaking symbolically. I certainly do 
not believe that the Seer means to say 
that a literal angel literally put literal 
handcuffs on the literal devil. Yet just 
that is what a recent writer 3 on Premil- 
lennialism maintains; and he suggests 
that this angel was a heavenly sheriff! 
Verily, "to be literal is to be lost." 

I do not wonder that men easily drop 
into literalism when reading realistic 
literature. You can see that splendid 
angel seize the dragon by his slimy neck 
and fling him into the bottomless pit 
(what a conception — falling forever and 
yet never reaching a place for one's feet!) ; 

8 C. F. Wimberly, "Is the Devil a Myth," p. 150. 

186 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

and you can hear him slam to the door 
and chain it! 

The Seer is saying again that not only 
does the Lord God Omnipotent reign, but 
that all of his enemies shall be utterly 
cast down. Not only so: The Kingdom, 
so far from being vanquished by the 
Empire — the Empire which is but the 
creature of the Dragon — shall yet come 
to a glorious manifestation. And John's 
prayer is that that manifestation of the 
Lord and His Church, the Bridal of the 
Lamb, may come quickly. 

This view reads the passage fairly. 
The literalist view to which I have re- 
ferred runs counter to phases of the text 
to some of the ruling ideas of Christianity, 
and to the fundamental ideas of the Book 
of Revelation. It holds that the Dragon's 
dominion shall be supreme until Christ's 
return. The literalistic view of the text 
187 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

referred to above is committed to the 
conception of an absent Christ and to the 
dependence of the Kingdom for victory 
upon the emergence into the world of 
celestial power not at present operative 
in human affairs. Now, the Book of 
Revelation ever emphasizes two truths. 
First, Christ is here now in human af- 
fairs, inspiring, judging, redeeming, con- 
quering. Second, Christ will prevail. 
The redeeming grace is at work, and the 
consummation is certain, is being wrought 
out. The victory is through the Cross, 
the "blood of the Lamb," not the return- 
ing Christ. (12:11.) 

The twentieth chapter does tell of a 
miraculous leap in the affairs of the King- 
dom, yet that leap comes as the climax of 
the long struggle between the will of the 
Beast and the Will of God. It is the 
final crisis in the age-long struggle be- 
188 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 



tween Christ and anti-Christ. The Seer 
seizes upon vast symbols to suggest the 
progress of that struggle, mysterious and 
subtle to all of us. He sees the Dragon 
cast forth from heaven. He sees him 
bound in the collapse of the Roman Em- 
pire, which to the Seer was, in its deeper 
meaning, but a minion of the Beast. 
Finally the Dragon is destroyed. And the 
Seer, we are justified, I think, in be- 
lieving, saw this conflict much as his 
Master did, who in one moment of 
exultation upon the victorious return of 
his first witnesses exclaimed, "I see 
Satan falling from heaven." 

I need not dwell longer upon my con- 
tention that neither in the twentieth 
chapter nor in the Book as a whole do 
we find support for the premillennial view 
of the Kingdom. But if any one feels 
disposed to question the soundness of 
189 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

this contention, let me remind him that 
the chiliastic view, in spite of the zeal 
and learning of not a few of its advocates, 
has never been able to sustain itself. 

Harnack in his illuminating article 
on the Millennium ("Brittanica") points 
out that the millenarian or chiliastic 
views which had been taken over by the 
early Christians from later Judaism were 
suppressed in the East as early as the 
latter part of the second century by the 
rising of a more philosophical theology, 
and especially by the growing tendency 
to mysticism. While in the Western 
Church Augustine's interpretations of the 
Catholic Church as the Kingdom of 
Christ pushed the apocalyptic concep- 
tion to the wall, though through the 
centuries these chiliastic views lived on 
in the lower strata of Christian society 
among those democrats, mystics, mal- 
190 



The Book and the Returning Christ. 

contents, or what not, opposed to the 
Church of the hierarchy. 

Now, in spite of the failing of the 
chiliastic conception of the Kingdom of 
Christ to commend itself to the common 
Christian consciousness after the second 
century — the time of confusion and theo- 
logical anarchy and chaos out of which 
the Church soon emerged — the Book of 
Revelation recovered its authority in the 
Eastern Church by the beginning of the 
Middle Ages, while in the Western Church, 
Harnack says, as to its canonicity and 
apostolic authorship no doubts were ever 
entertained. 

Here are two important facts: The 
chiliastic or apocalyptic view of the 
Kingdom lapsing, and at the same time 
the Book of Revelation steadily and in- 
creasingly claiming the recognition of the 
Church universal. How shall we explain 
191 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



this situation? I venture to say that it 
is but one of several unmistakable evi- 
dences that the Book of Revelation, so 
far from lending comfort to any materi- 
alistic or literalistic or chiliastic view of 
the Kingdom, is the most mystical and 
spiritual book of the New Testament, not 
excepting either the Fourth Gospel or 
the Epistle to the Hebrews. 4 

4 Dr. Frank M. Thomas's sane and interesting book on 
"The Coming Presence" (Re veil) did not come out until 
after my manuscript had been completed, so I was not able 
to make any use of it, save by the references herein given. 
However, having read it carefully, I would not wish to modify 
my statement as given above. I do wish, though, to com- 
mend the book to all devout students of the Scriptures. It 
shows both the providential preparation for Christ's teaching 
in the apocalyptic teachings of later Judaism, and also how 
those teachings were lifted up by the Master and, as Dob- 
schutz puts it, were "transmuted." It also makes clear 
what is confused in the minds of many, that the Master held 
in His thought the consummation as distinct from such crises 
as, e. g., the Fall of Jerusalem. It is an excellent piece of 
exposition, especially of the Pauline and Synoptic texts. 



192 



THE BOOK AND THE BETTER 
COUNTRY. 



13 



IEY desire a better country, that is an heavenly. — 
Hebrews. 

A city throned upon a height behold, 
Wherein no foot of man as yet has trod; 
The City of Man's life fulfilled in God. 

Bathed all in light, with open gates of gold. 

Perfect the City is in tower and street; 
And there a Palace for each mortal waits, 
Complete and perfect, at whose outer gates 

An Angel stands its occupant to greet. 

Still shine, O patient City on the height, 
The while our race in hut and hovel dwells. 
It hears the music of thy heavenly bells 

And its dull soul is haunted by thy light. 

Lo, one, the Son of Man, hath heard thy call 

And the dear Christ hath claimed thee for us all. 

■ — Phillips Brooks. 



THE BOOK AND THE BETTER 
COUNTRY. 

And now at last we have come in 
the company of the Seer and the angels 
to the great and high mountain com- 
manding a view of the sweet and blessed 
country, "the better country" which 
eager hearts have expected since the 
days of Abraham. And inasmuch as the 
Seer is manifestly more than a maker of 
conundrums, and more than merely an 
ordinary apocalyptist, we ought to let 
him speak in his own fine way of this 
land which by most of us is seen only 
afar off, indeed, but which lay all about 
the Seer, making tolerable the rigor of 
the quarries of lonely Patmos, filling his 
night of exile with music. Again and 
195 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

again he has brought us some token 
from it, a word, a fragrance, a bit of 
song, the glimpse of a throne, the sight 
of millions of its inhabitants clothed in 
white, wearing crowns. He has taken 
us from the first by a climbing path, 
giving us a glimpse now and again of 
things impossible to describe. At last we 
have reached the summit, and the whole 
land lies before us with the City of God 
coming down out of heaven, glorious as 
pure gold and radiant as the sun. 

This splendid vision, which breaks 
upon us in the twenty-first and the 
twenty-second chapters, as if by a sud- 
den turn in the road we had been brought 
round the shoulder of a mountain, we 
should have been expecting, for the Seer 
has had it in mind from the beginning. 
Indeed, it might be said that he has 
written his Book to set this vision in a 
196 



The Book and the Better Country. 

right perspective, for surely his deep, 
pastoral purpose was to fire the hearts 
of the fainting Christians of his time 
with such a passion for the holy city that 
they would gird themselves anew to the 
task of transforming the Empire of the 
Beast into the Kingdom of the Lamb! 
They were not to stand forever trembling 
at the sight of Csesar's dripping sword. 
It was for them to conquer and to reign, 
and their lives were to go forth to all the 
earth in a river of blessing. This glorious 
climax has been suggested again and 
again by words, by images, by promises, 
and also by the second of the Seer's two 
fundamental conceptions, that Christ is 
to prevail. As has been said, the Seer's 
thought moves around two poles: First, 
he is always insisting upon Christ as a 
present and sufficient grace; and secondly, 
he is saying over and over again that He 
197 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

shall prevail. The Kingdom has come. 
The Kingdom shall come. It has come, 
but it shall come yet more gloriously. It 
is a seed planted in the ground. It shall 
become a tree and fill the whole world 
with its comfort, the richness of its 
fragrance, the abundance of its fruitage. 
He is always, as the Prophet of the Older 
Order, asking his friends to look up and 
see all about them the horses and chariots 
of the Lord; and likewise he is saying to 
his friends, if they will be faithful even 
unto the shedding of blood, they shall 
see the City of God coming down out of 
heaven. This becomes clearer when we 
contrast these closing chapters with the 
opening chapters of the Book. In the 
opening chapters we see the Church weak 
and fainting. Yet it is expected to over- 
come. That command is laid upon it. 
To that end the Master Himself calls to 
198 



The Book and the Better Country. 

His Church. At the close of the Book 
we see this same Community of Redeemed 
Ones empowered, radiant, reigning in the 
earth. 

So intent is John upon the future of 
the Kingdom that he seems to lose sight, 
almost to lose sight, of the individual 
Christian. Certainly there is no more 
glorious vision in the Book, unless it be 
the vision of Heaven given in the fourth 
and fifth chapters, than this vision of 
the Consummation of the Kingdom which 
pictures the issue of the conflict between 
the Dominion of the Dragon and the 
Kingdom of the Lamb. 

Let us turn, then, to a more detailed 
study of this closing section of the Book. 

"And I saw the holy city, new Jerusa- 
lem, coming down out of heaven from 
God, made ready as a bride adorned for 
her husband." (21:2.) To conceive of 
199 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



the New Community under the symbol 
of a bride, though not altogether original 
with the Seer (Isa. 61:10-62:5) was a 
stroke of genius, especially as this is con- 
trasted with the symbol of the harlot, 
which is used to suggest the essential 
character of the Empire of the Beast. 
The Empire of the Beast was earthly, 
material, sensual, lustful. What more 
wonderfully accurate symbol than that 
of the harlot could have been chosen! 
The new society, heaven-born, aspiring, 
hopeful, pure, is symbolized by a bride! 
The redeemed ones, the Kingdom, con- 
ceived as a bride, as an army, as a city — 
how rich in imagination the Seer was! 
This symbol of the bride should be 
studied in contrast with the symbol used 
for the Empire of the Beast. Both Baby- 
lon and the New Jerusalem are shown 
to the Seer by one of the Seven Angels of 
200 



The Book and the Better Country. 



Judgment (17: 1, 21: 9); Babylon is seen 
from the wilderness (17:3), the New 
Jerusalem from a high mountain (£1 : 10) ; 
Babylon sits upon many waters (peoples) 
(17: 1), the New Jerusalem comes down 
out of heaven; Babylon is pictured as a 
harlot, the New Jerusalem as a bride. 
Consistently the Seer keeps, in his descrip- 
tion of Babylon, to the symbol of the 
harlot. She is dressed in purple and 
scarlet, decked with gold, precious stones? 
and pearls ; she holds in her hand a beaker 
of gold full of fornications; she lies 
drunken on her couch (17:4-6). While 
her death, though lamented by seamen, 
merchants, and kings (18:9-19), is re- 
joiced over in heaven by the redeemed 
(18:20-19:6). With a fine artistry the 
Seer pitilessly works out the detailed 
characterization of the Empire of the 
Beast in that spirit of worldliness which 
201 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

burns out of the heart all capacity for 
God. (1 John 2: 15-17.) And a study 
of this symbol reveals by contrast the 
beauty and purity set forth under the 
symbol of the bride. 

In chapter 21 : 1-8 we get a distant 
view of the City, and it appears as a 
bride — pure, hopeful, radiant. And as 
we look we hear a voice saying: "Behold, 
the tabernacle of God is with men and 
He will dwell with them, and they shall 
be His people and God Himself shall be 
with them and be their God. And God 
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; 
and there shall be no more death, neither 
sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be 
any more pain, for the former things are 
passed away. And He that sat upon the 
throne said, Behold, I make all things 
new." God's purpose in creation — a 
society of men and women created in His 
202 



The Book and the Better Country. 

image, united in fellowship with Him, is 
realized. All spiritual antagonism has 
subsided within the new society. God's 
will has come to pass, and the new 
society is supreme upon the earth, though 
apparently it does not include within its 
glorious company all the population of 
the earth. (21 : 8 and 22 : 2.) 

But the Seer does not dwell upon the 
symbol of the bride. It suggests the 
purity, the aspiration, the hopefulness, 
and the faithfulness of the new humanity ; 
but it is not enough to convey the full 
splendor of the Seer's thought of the 
Kingdom, so he changes from the symbol 
of the bride to that of an ideal city. 

The Seer's use of the symbol of the 
bride ought forever to have prevented 
that crass literalism which would have us 
believe that the Seer is describing a literal 
city in these chapters. But the New 
203 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Jerusalem is as certainly a symbol as the 
bride, and, if I read aright, supplemental, 
a further attempt to describe the in- 
describable. 

If in the first verses of the twenty- 
first chapter (21:1-8) we get a distant 
view of the City, in the later verses we 
get a near view, where the angel points 
out various details of the City. 

It is not necessary to comment at 
length on the sublime symbolism of this 
vision of the City. 

The Seer sees it coming down from 
heaven; it is a blaze of glorious light, for 
Christ is the Light of the World and His 
people are to shine forth like a city set 
on a hill; its walls are great and high, for 
it is a place of refuge, whose gates are al- 
ways open day and night, for the people 
are to come from the east and the west, 
and from the north and the south, and 
204 



The Book and the Better Country. 



sit down in the Kingdom of God; and the 
gates are angel-guarded to keep the un- 
clean out and to protect those who have 
entered. Upon its foundations and gates 
are written the names of the apostles 
and the twelve tribes of Israel, for the 
community which this City symbolizes 
has been gathered through centuries by 
the toil of prophets as well as apostles; 
the city lieth four-square, and the length 
and the breadth and the height of it are 
equal, for it is the symbol of the fullness 
and inclusiveness of God's Grace; it is 
made of all manner of precious stones, 
for into the Kingdom of God all manner 
of lives shall be built, and all are precious 
in God's sight; the gates of whose city 
is each a pearl! And there is no sun nor 
moon there, "for the glory of God does 
lighten it, and the Lamb is the Light 
thereof." And the inhabitants of the 
205 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

City are they which have been saved out 
of all nations, for nothing unclean can 
enter therein. Through the midst of the 
City runs the River of the Water of Life, 
clear as crystal; and on either side of 
the river is the Tree of Life, whose leaves 
are for the healing of the nations. 

Such is the City of God, the new 
Society, the Redeemed Community which 
the Church, under the leadership of the 
Spirit, is to create. 

II. 

It seems hardly necessary to say that 
the Seer in this section is not describing 
heaven, or the Eternal World; and yet 
there is no violence in so interpreting 
this passage, for essentially the life here 
portrayed is akin to that which he saw 
when the door in heaven was opened. 
Still, strictly speaking, this is the coming 
206 



The Book and the Better Country. 
■ 

civilization which is to fill the earth, 1 
displacing the Empire of the Beast. It 
is the Kingdom of God on earth; but 
when that is fully come it is to be heaven- 
like, for in it the will of God is to be all 
in all, as it is in heaven now. 

III. 

And this will of God is of the utmost 
moment in this conception. What the 
Seer sets before the Church as its task 
is not a program of social adjustment. 
That must come, and will. But the 
Church task is to help bring about a 
reconciliation between man and God, to 
help the nations back to the tree of life. 
I say this is all-important in a right 
reading of this section and of the Book. 
The great disconcerting fact in the world 



1 Itis a new heaven and a new earth; the old physical 
and the old moral order have passed away. 

207 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

is sin, and sin in the Scriptural view and 
in the Seer's is a running counter to God's 
will, and not merely a social maladjust- 
ment. In such a time as ours, when men 
are trying to interpret religion without 
God, and life by its earthly fragment, 
and Christianity as a mere social program, 
I can not insist too emphatically that the 
Seer's emphasis and point of view are 
absolutely other. This is not to mini- 
mize the social suggestion of this vision 
of the City of God. That would be 
foolish, indeed, for perhaps no other 
single extant writing in all literature has 
exerted a deeper or wider influence upon 
the thinking of workers for social better- 
ment than has this vision of the Holy 
City. Its influence may be traced in 
hymns, sermons, social philosophy, and 
the more popular forms of literature. 
The Book of Revelation as a whole is a 
203 



The Book and the Better Country. 

social document. It does more than re- 
flect a social situation in a most important 
crisis. It sets up social ideals, and is in- 
tense with social feeling and all compact 
of social suggestion. Its fundamental 
aim is to fire its readers with a desire to 
create the New Community after the 
pattern shown in the Sermon on the 
Mount. 

Yet there is a point here to be kept 
clearly in mind. Christianity is not a 
religion of social betterment. True, it 
has steadily and perceptibly made for 
the humaner modes of life, for the larger 
brotherhood, for the finer and broader 
justice. But all this is by-product. The 
problem of Christianity is the sin prob- 
lem. Its aim is harmony as between God 
and man. It recognizes the will of man 
and seeks to bring this in line with the 
will of God. As a consequence, all of its 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

intelligent expositors and representatives 
have deprecated every attempt to reduce 
it to a mere social program confined to 
time. Christianity has always looked 
out upon two worlds, and it has always 
looked at the present life under the 
aspect of eternity; not when it has been 
true to itself to the depreciation of the 
present life, but rather, far rather, to the 
higher value of this present life. For at 
its best Christianity seeks to help every 
soul to live now and forever in the power 
of an endless life. Christianity then 
seeks, like Abraham, not better pastures, 
but the " better country," where the will 
of God is done. 

The Book of Revelation has the genius 
of Christianity. In it you see reflected 
the evils of the closing days of the Roman 
Empire. Over it you see the shadow of 
the Empire of the Beast, the shadow of 
210 



The Book and the Better Country. 

sin. The Seer worked day by day as a 
prisoner for Christ's sake, and just as the 
sea pounded forever into his ears the 
fact of his exile, so forever his chain, his 
stint in the quarries, reminded him of 
the hard injustices, of the tyranny of the 
civilization in which he and his brethren 
lived, a civilization in which human life 
was cheap and human hope at a mini- 
mum. Still, over this Book breaks the 
light and hope inspired of the Divine 
Grace. It is a Book of sublime optimism. 
It preaches a gospel of deliverance from 
injustice, and also from the bondage of 
sin. Every worker for social betterment 
will find in this Book much ground for 
encouragement, much material for illus- 
tration and comparison. Here some 
things have been made clear. Here one 
can hear the grinding of the mills of God. 
Here one is made to feel that a great 
211 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

justice is over all things. The music of 
the Book never lets us forget that. For, 
while the undertone of the Book is a 
sob, the overtone is a shout of hallelujah. 
Its optimism is born not of a confidence 
that social adjustments shall be reached, 
but of the assurance that sin, the maker 
of sorrow and tears, shall be done away 
with and everywhere the discords of 
earth shall yield to the song of the 
cherubic hosts, the darkness to light, the 
strife to peace. 

IV. 

It should be remarked, also, that 
much cheap modern comment has spoken 
as if the Seer had been absorbed with 
streets of gold and gates of pearl. Noth- 
ing could be more unfair. Conspicuous 
in the glorious City revealed to us are 
the redeemed throngs, the River of the 
212 



The Book and the Better Country. 

Water of Life, the Tree of Life, the open 
gates, the calling of the Spirit and the 
Bride; and when we seek the meaning of 
these aspects of the vision we see that the 
new community is not "to be ministered 
unto," but is to be "the servant of all." 
As Charles Brown has beautifully said: 
"As surely as she is the Church and the 
presence of her Lord is in her, will she 
have pity and power in her heart and 
her hands for the woes, the thirsts, and 
the longings of humanity — pity to com- 
pensate, and power to heal. In her will 
be the river of the water of life, because 
in her midst will be the throne of God 
and of the Lamb." "Nothing that de- 
fileth may enter the City, but surely the 
denied thing or person that needs or 
longs for purity may enter in and be 
cleansed. Nothing that loveth and mak- 
eth a lie may enter, but the people who 
213 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

are tired of lying ana long for truth may 
enter. It is nowhere said that need may 
not enter. The gates are surely open, 
and the angels are there for the very pur- 
pose of welcoming such. I hope I am 
not wrong in my interpretation, but I 
always regard chapter 22: 17 as a cry 
uttered by the open gates of the City to 
people to come into the City of God. 
The Spirit utters the cry to the heart, 
the Church proclaims it to the outward 
ear. There is shelter, safety, cleansing, 
healing, and peace in the City of God, 
and through its open gate you may enter 
in if you will." 2 

If I mistake not, this is essentially 
the right reading. It would seem little 
short of willfulness to speak of the Seer's 
vision of the Holy City as a materialist's 
conception. There is nothing Moham- 

2 "Heavenly Visions," p. 271. 

214 



The Book and the Better Country. 

medan about the Seer's city. Nor does 
the Seer conceive of Christianity indi- 
vidualistically, as, for instance, some 
have accused Bunyan of doing. Every- 
where the Book is charged with social 
feeling, and nowhere else in this Book 
is the Master's Spirit more fully revealed 
than here in this vision of the City beau- 
tiful, splendid, gorgeous in its imagery, 
yet full of tenderness and graciousness, 
a place of refuge and light. 

The vision of the City is a fitting 
climax for the whole Book. 

The Book opens with an unveiling of 
Christ in His glory that the Church may 
go forward in its great task of creating 
the Kingdom, of bringing down into the 
work of the world the Grace of God. 

The Seer beheld his people cast down 
and discouraged. They felt their sepa- 
rateness and weakness. He says to them, 
215 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

"Behold, Christ is with you to help, to 
heal, to save. He is the Sufficient One." 

Then He takes them from the earth 
level and shows them the Throne of God, 
that they may see above all the tumult 
of the world the righteousness of God 
prevailing, and prevailing by sacrificial 
love. The Throne of God, in other words, 
finds its meaning not in its splendor, but 
in the Slain Lamb. 

Having shown them the throne, he 
looks with them closely at the Malignant 
Antagonism of the world, in which was 
manifest an embodiment of the con- 
tinuous but futile resistance to the will 
of God. 

Finally, he shows this resistance over- 
come and God's will supreme in his beau- 
tiful vision of the City coming down out 
of heaven from God. 

216 



THE SEER. 



"Y^E needed not to inquire the way to Heaven, for he had 
been walking therein for three years. For him no phys- 
ical theophany was needed who had looked on the face of 
Jesus. What were mysteries to other men who had only 
sight were revelations to Him who had vision. A skeptic must 
question and argue, it is his necessity; a mystic has only to 
learn and listen, it is his felicity. A mystic gathers truth as 
a plant absorbs the light, in silence and without effort. His 
service to his brethren is to ask secrets of the Lord. — Ian 
Maclaren, in "The Upper Room" 



THE SEER. 

We have come to the end of the 
Book. Something of its meaning lies be- 
fore us. We have heard it speak of the 
Present Christ. We have, by its help, 
looked out upon the field of the world 
from the heavenly heights. We have 
studied the age-long conflict between the 
Dragon and the Lamb. We have seen 
from afar the Better Country coming 
down out of heaven. As we have read, I 
trust our horizon has receded, our vision 
has cleared, our hearts have been quick- 
ened to a larger faith and love and hope. 

By the help of the Book we have 
looked upon the great Christian facts, the 
Incarnate Word, the White Throne, the 
219 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

Splendid City, as they have stood before 
us in celestial light; we have been led to 
think much of the atoning love of God, 
of the enormity of sin, of the malignity 
of evil, of the beauty of holiness, of the 
pleasures for evermore at God's right 
hand. 

We lay down the Book and ask our- 
selves, What manner of man was this 
Seer who has been speaking to us with 
such authority and with such mighty 
appeal? For no one can read this Book 
without a consciousness of the heart that 
beats through it, of the mind that utters 
itself after much brooding, of the per- 
sonality everywhere felt yet nowhere 
thrust between us and the message he has 
for the Church. Who is this Seer who 
has been speaking to us and unfolding the 
hidden things of the Kingdom for us? 
What manner of man was he? The 
220 



The Seer. 



answer to our question must be sought 
in the Book itself. 

It is not, I take it, that the question 
we ask has to do with the mere author- 
ship of the Book. It is the mind of the 
Seer that we would know more about, 
his life, his experiences, his temper, his 
soul. 

Scholarship is divided in its opinion 
as to who this John was whom we have 
called the Seer. There are certain radi- 
cals who hold that the Fourth Gospel, 
the Epistles of John, and the Apocalypse 
all belong to the same school, and none 
of them can be accredited to the Apostle 
John. Perhaps John the Presbyter wrote 
the Gospel and some of his followers in- 
dited the other Scriptures. An increasing 
number of scholars lean to the opinion 
that the traditional view is right, namely, 
that John the Apostle gave the Church 
221 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

all three of the writings. Any one can 
easily look up the facts that justify this 
conclusion in Swete's commentary, or in 
any one of a number of able com- 
mentaries. I am persuaded, as I have 
already said, that we have in the Apoca- 
lypse "the same breadth of view, the 
same easy grasp of both great and subtle 
spiritual truths, the same gift of insight, 
the same moral poignancy, the same 
self-suppression, the same spirit of awe 
combined with spiritual audacity" as are 
found in the Fourth Gospel. What is 
true of the Apocalypse and the Gospel 
is also true of the Epistles. So it would 
be fair, from my point of view, to look 
to both the Gospel and the Epistles for 
help in answering our question. But it 
will be better to confine our study to 
the Book, and to keep in mind that we 
are not concerned primarily to answer 
222 



The Seer. 



the questions: Did the same man write 
both the Apocalypse and the Gospel? 
Was he an Apostle? Was he the Apostle 
John? These are interesting and im- 
portant questions. And as I have said, 
I, personally, hold to the Johannine 
authorship of all these writings. My de- 
sire is, however, to study a little more 
closely than we have yet done the mind 
of the Seer. This will help us the better 
to understand and appreciate his message. 

II. 

A careful reading of the Book leads 
one to feel that its author was a man of 
unusual native capacity, who had had 
the best of educational advantages, and 
who had had laid upon him grave 
responsibilities. Alexander Whyte in his 
brief but excellent characterization of the 
Apostle John, in one of his volumes on 
223 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 



"Bible Characters/' has seized upon 
John's gift of imagination, his ability to 
think steadily or meditate, and his ca- 
pacity for loving as his chief and dis- 
tinctive characteristics. The Seer may 
be characterized in the same way as to 
his native abilities. But as one reads 
the Book one is also aware of the varied 
influences that have shaped these native 
abilities. The Seer again and again 
makes allusions that show how deeply he 
had been influenced by the life of the 
Master. He has felt the majesty of 
Christ; and Calvary has left a profound 
effect upon his mind. I can not but 
mention again the Seer's reference to the 
false prophets calling down fire from 
heaven. It seems certain to me that this 
is a subtle allusion to the time when the 
Seer himself wanted to call fire down 
from heaven and the Master reproved 
224 



The Seer. 



him. He has come to know better now. 
Only false prophets resort to such means. 
Besides the influence of Christ upon the 
Seer may be seen the effects of his pas- 
toral labors, and also of his exile. I need 
not dwell upon these things. 

In like manner it is not difficult to 
trace some of the effects of his task upon 
the mind of the Seer. 

Let us now look at some outstanding 
features of the Seer's mind as revealed in 
the Book, without adhering closely to the 
distinctions I have indicated. 

III. 

In the chapter on the Book some 
facts brought out may be referred to 
again as revealing the mind of the Seer. 
We touched there upon the infinite per- 
spective of the Book, its vast canvas, its 
musical effects, its sublime symbolism, 
1 5 225 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

its scenery. But these characteristics 
speak of a mind with a rare gift of 
imagination. The Seer really saw. He 
saw the unseen and unseeable in symbols 
often. Yet he saw civilization con- 
temporary to himself as in a picture. He 
saw Rome as Rome actually was, trading 
in everything even to "the souls of men." 
He saw the sprawling, brutal, material- 
istic civilization of his day as a huge 
beast. It took spiritual and artistic 
genius to conceive Rome under the image 
of a beast. He saw Rome also as a har- 
lot, and the image is scarcely less inspired 
in its fitness to the actual facts. He saw 
the Holy City also, and no one has 
come at all close to the Seer in his power 
to make great spiritual conceptions stand 
before us, sharply and accurately drawn, 
yet with a marked elusiveness and, after 
all, if I may put it so, unpicturableness. 
226 



The Seer. 

Sublime as the picture of the Son of Man 
is, it could not be painted unless we were 
to take the sword out of His mouth; 
and then it would seem too martial a 
figure. Still, we make the interpretation 
easily, because we know what the sword 
stands for; and it can not be said that 
it mars the figure. It does say to us, 
this whole figure of the Son of Man, that 
the Seer was a seer rather than an artist 
or mere symbolist. He was seizing upon 
the secret of the Kingdom's spread; and 
in large part, that is by the foolishness 
of preaching. By the patience of the 
saints, dying but not yielding, and by 
the power of the Spirit; but also by the 
foolishness of preaching the Kingdom 
goes forward. Thus the Kingdom began 
in power, for "In the beginning was the 
Word." Now, this making of pictures, 
which are celestially beautiful and won- 
227 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

derfully enthralling, and yet withal un- 
picturable, reveals a mind highly imagi- 
native at the same time that it is amaz- 
ingly penetrative, and gifted with spir- 
itual clairvoyance. Another illustration 
akin to the Son of Man is the picture of 
the city whose height and length and 
breadth are equal. It will not make a 
picture as it is; and yet it does picture 
forth subtle spiritual aspects of the so- 
ciety of Jesus, which is heaven-inspired. 

We at once feel the wealth of the 
Seer's imagination, and marvel at his 
scenic effects: at the stars falling from 
heaven, at angels striding land and sea, 
standing in the sun, flashing in gold ap- 
parel gloriously across the fields of his- 
tory, at thrones resplendent, at cities 
flaming out to ashes in the unquenchable 
fires of their own lusts, at the unnumbered 
multitudes in white robes standing on 
228 



The Seer. 



the gold pavements of heaven. Neither 
Bunyan nor Dante can equal the Seer in 
picturing forth spiritual truth. One mar- 
vels at each fresh reading of the Book: 
at its silences, at its thunders, at its 
storms, at the peaceful heart at the cen- 
ter of the storm, at the armies that 
tramp before us, and at the hail, rain, 
pestilence, fires, martyrs, heavenly com- 
panies that crowd its fascinating pages. 
No interpreter has ever added to these 
values. Every one who attempts to speak 
of the way the Book impresses him in 
this particular, feels, when he is through, 
that he somehow has marred the subtle 
beauty of the Book. Here is the artist, 
the poet, the dramatist! Here is imagi- 
nation, great, magnificent, sublime, chas- 
tened ! 

Every reader notes this, and the pity 
is that we to-day can not, in the very 
229 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

nature of the case, appreciate this as 
fully as the first readers of the Book 
must have appreciated it, and that for 
the simple reason that first of all we have 
to decipher his meaning because the 
world to which he alludes so often, that 
old, hard, Roman world, with the lust of 
it, has forever passed away! 

Yet more significant than this pic- 
ture, these scenic effects, the color and 
music of the Book, are the profound 
spiritual insight and the large, easy 
spiritual grasp characteristic of it. This 
again reveals the mind of the Seer. These 
qualities I have tried to bring out as we 
have read the Book. The Seer's mastery 
of the vision of Christ, his understanding 
of the mission of the Church, his insight 
into the nature of the ultimate reality, 
his confident optimism, his great capacity 
for faith, his infinite patience, his fierce 
230 



The Seer. 

hatred of sin, his gentleness and tender- 
ness evidently born of a long ministry 
in the preaching of the Word and the 
care of the Churches, his fidelity, his un- 
flinching courage! Let no one think 
that these are extravagant characteriza- 
tions. The truth is, the Book of Revela- 
tion has not in all these nineteen hundred 
years come into its own. We are only be- 
ginning to realize the spiritual wealth 
concealed in its pages and symbols. We 
have not been willing to have it speak 
to us. It is, I maintain, more a Book 
of great ideas than of wonderful pictures ; 
for it speaks the great Christian words: 
God, the sacrificial love; Christ, the re- 
deeming grace; the Church, the mighty 
witness; the Kingdom, a spirit of life, 
cleansing and uplifting, a civilization 
where the souls of men shall have oppor- 
tunity and enlargement and noble fellow- 
231 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

ship. The great truths, righteousness, 
retribution, redemption: how they live 
before us in this Book! 

Now, these ideas reveal the mind and 
heart, the power, the greatness, the 
simplicity of the Seer. They speak to us 
of a mind of rare native ability. They 
speak to us also of a great heart. And 
above all (and the same is true of the 
Fourth Gospel) they speak to us of the 
influence of Jesus. I have been glancing 
again over the table of contents of that 
noble book by George Findlay — "Fellow- 
ship in the Life Eternal, An Exposition 
of the Epistles of St. John" — and I note 
that the Epistles bring out many of these 
same traits, and show not only the 
native quality of John's life, but the 
influence of Jesus. Professor Findlay's 
chapter titles are interesting: "The Mani- 
fested Life," "Fellowship in the Light of 
232 



The Seer. 

God," "The Advocate and the Propitia- 
tion," "The True Knowledge of God," 
"The Love that Perishes," "The Last 
Hour," "The Inadmissibility of Sin," 
"The Conquering Faith," "The Eternal 
Life," and "The Sin unto Death." These 
chapter titles, which read out the mean- 
ing of the Epistles, are surely consonant 
with the Book, and reveal the mind of the 
Seer, a mind rich toward God in its very 
constitution, and trained in the school of 
Christ. 

IV. 

We are wont to ascribe large place to 
Paul in the founding of Christianity, and 
we should. I do not believe it is possible 
to overestimate his importance to the 
Cause either at the beginning or con- 
tinuously. But I am equally certain 
that it is an easy thing for us to fail to 
see the importance of the service of John 
233 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

by his gifts of the Epistles, the Apoca- 
lypse, and the Gospel. And if we think 
of him simply as the Seer whose person- 
ality gives unity and meaning to the 
Book, this still is true, for as we read 
this Book we must be conscious of more 
than the prophet's vision and ideas. 
We must feel the prophet himself, a man 
of action, knowing the times, knowing 
men, knowing the heart of man, know- 
ing the Master's secret, and because of 
his knowledge able the better to make 
his appeals more effective, and his leader- 
ship also. The Seer who speaks in the 
Book is no dreamer apart. He is an 
exiled leader who has suffered and suffers, 
yet directs the host from afar. The Book 
does reveal a vivid imagination, a dra- 
matic instinct, great literary genius; it 
also speaks of a mind capable of medita- 
tion and quiet thinking and wide ranging 
234 



The Seeh. 



and of keen analytic power; but still 
more, the Book speaks of the indomitable 
will of a soul that has entered into the 
liberty wherewith Christ makes free. 
Frankly, I like those imperious words 
that seem to speak to some interpreters 
of a spirit of vengeance scarcely worthy 
of Christ. They do not convey that 
meaning to me. They speak to me of a 
soul passionately in earnest, full of an 
unswerving and intense devotion to the 
Cause; of a love that spews out luke- 
warm loyalty and calls for fiery hearts, 
burning with zeal for the Cause. 

It is true, too, that the Seer never 
would have spoken so sternly about the 
time - servers and comfort - seekers and 
compromisers had he not earned the 
right so to speak by his own whole- 
hearted service. So we should read all 
such inexorable passages as reflecting the 
235 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

practical work of the Seer in former days 
in the way of laying foundations and re- 
sisting the Beast. 

This is an aspect of the Seer's life that 
should not be overlooked. 

V. 

I have already indicated that it is a 
misreading of the Book to make of it a 
harsh interpretation of Christianity, to 
think of the Christ here revealed as in 
striking contrast with the Christ of the 
Fourth Gospel, except that here we do 
see the regal aspect of Christ as the 
Church had need of that, and here we 
see the Christ of Glory and not the 
Christ of the Earthly Humiliation. Yet 
over the Book is the tenderness which is 
Christ's gift, and, as I have said, the 
author has been in the school of Calvary. 

It is well to mark this. One of the 
236 



The Seer. 



Seer's traits is a sweet and tender pity, 
albeit the martyr spirit flames up through 
the pitiful tenderness. This kind comes 
by toil and prayer and bloody sweat. 
We read the Book, and thus learn of the 
education its author had received both 
in the fellowship of Christ and in the 
service of Christ. Only one who had 
wrought laboriously and effectively could 
have spoken with so much authority. 
Only one who had ministered long could 
have known the Churches so intimately. 
Only one who had loved intensely could 
have chastened the Christian societies so 
unflinchingly. The letters in chapters 
two and three speak to us of the Churches 
and of the Glorious Presence. They also 
speak to us of a faithful ministry and an 
unceasing care of the Churches. 

So, too, we read the Book between the 
lines, and hear the sea, and behold the 
237 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

rocky shores where the exile waited, and 
from which he gazed out and up! The 
Book speaks of a mind that has suffered, 
a mind that has been purified by fire, of a 
heart sweet by faith, and a faith kept 
strong by prayer! Findlay says, "St. 
John kept a tranquil heart through a 
long lifetime of storm and stress." For 
he knew that "the world passeth away 
and the lust thereof," while "He that 
doeth the will of God abideth forever." 
The Book is full of storms, but it is not 
stormy. It is anchored, and its anchor 
holds. But this speaks of the Seer's 
inner life. He was not terrified by the 
Beast. His confidence was in God. 

Alexander Whyte in his penetrating 
but brief characterization of John, already 
referred to, notes John's imagination, his 
gift of meditation, and his capacity for 
love. God said, "Let us make Zebedee's 
238 



The Seer. 

son, and let us make him full of eyes 
within!" "John listened as none of them 
listened to all that his Master said, both 
in conversation and in debate and in dis- 
course. John thought and thought con- 
tinually on what he saw and heard." 
His was an "inward, meditating, brood- 
ing, imaginative, mystical, spiritual 
mind." "Plato had all that," but then 
Plato "had not John's privileges and op- 
portunities." Paul had not had such 
privileges and opportunities, and Paul 
was a man of action, running everywhere 
with the good news. All of this is true. 
But above all, John was the Apostle of 
Love. The tradition of how the young 
men would carry the apostle into the 
Church at Ephesus when he could no 
longer walk, and of how he would say, 
"Little children, love one another," has 
been lovingly preserved by the Church 
239 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

because it preserves the mind of John for 
all time. 

Only a great lover could have written 
this Book which we have been reading 
together — a lover of truth, of righteous- 
ness, of men, of Christ, of God. Read the 
Book again and see if this is not so. Un- 
consciously this is reflected by the Seer 
in the treatment the heavenly messengers 
show him. It is seen in his weeping in 
heaven when it seems no one is able to 
open the seven-sealed book. But every 
word of the Apocalypse reveals an in- 
tense affection. Ramsay asks: "Who 
will set bounds to the growth of the 
human soul, when it is separated from 
all worldly relations and trammels, feed- 
ing on its own thoughts and the Divine 
Nature, and yet filled not with anxiety 
about its poor self, but with care, love, 
sympathy for those who have constituted 
240 



The Seer, 



its charge. It was under these circum- 
stances, by such fiery but refining influ- 
ences, that the Son of Thunder grew to 
be the Apostle of Love. The Apostle of 
a Love so great that no suffering could 
overcome it. A love that reached out 
from the loneliness of its exile to the 
dark places of the earth, where men suf- 
fered and languished and died." 

We read the Book and see love en- 
throned. "God is Love." We see this 
love reaching toward man in Christ Jesus, 
until men loved of God come to be able 
themselves to love, and the Divine Pur- 
pose reaches its goal in a society made 
up of those who love one another. 

"Beloved, let us love one another; 
for love is of God, and every one that 
loveth hath been begotten of God and 
knoweth God . . . and His love is 
consummated in him." 
w 241 



Heart Problems and World Issues. 

These are the words of him who 
speaks of the City whose chief attraction 
is not gates of pearl, but the fellowship 
of the pure-in-heart whose delight is in 
seeing His face, who hath redeemed 
them and given them light and salvation. 
And this City coming down out of 
heaven is but another window through 
which we may look in upon the soul of 
the Seer who was the Apostle of Love. 

VI. 

And this Seer of the Book who blew 
a great trumpet call to battle for the 
Church of his time is in our day speak- 
ing to us anew through his Book and is 
helping us to see the majesty and glory 
of the Christ whose we are and whom we 
are trying to serve; and is helping us to 
see, as he helped the Christians of his 
242 



The Seer. 



day to see, that the Cause with which 
we are identified is worthy of our best. 

Verily, "Blessed is he that readeth 
and they that hear the words of this 
Book and keep those things which are 
written therein; for the time is at hand." 



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